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1 



The New Acts of the Apostles 



m Brtbur Z. flMerson. 
The New Acts of the Apostles ; nR the 

Marvels of Modern Missions a series of 
Lectures upon the Foundation of the 'Duff 
Missionary Lectureship," deliverer! in ^u"f 
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THE 

New Acts of the Apostles 

OR 

THE MARVELS OF MODERN MISSIONS 
a Series of Xectures 

UPON THE 

FOUNDATION OF THE "DUFF MISSIONARY LECTURESHIP" 

Delivered in Scotland, in February and March, 1893 

With a chromo-lithographic Map of the World, and Chart, which 
show the Prevailing Religions of the World, their compara- 
tive areas, and the Progress of Evangelization' 

BY 

ARTHUR T. PIERSON 

Author of the " Crisis of Modern Missions," "Miracles of Missions: Many 
Infallible Proofs." Etc. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
REV. ANDREW THOMSON, D.D., F.R.S.E. 

Of Edinburgh, Scotland 




NEW YORK 
THE BAKEE & TAYLOR CO. 

5 and 7 East Sixteenth Street 



C-\ 



K 



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Tfie Library 
01 Congress 

WASHINGTON 



Copyright, 1894 1 
By THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO. 



Printed by 

tU Corfon (press 
New York, U. S. A. 



Dedication. 

AS A GRATEFUL OFFERING TO THE MEMORY OF 

THE REV. ALEXANDER DUFF, D.D., LL.D. 

WHO, BEYOND MOST OTHER MEN OF THIS CENTURY OF MISSIONS, 

CONTRIBUTED TO THE NEW CHAPTERS OF ITS MISSIONARY HISTORY; 

AND WHO, 

HAVING " SERVED HIS OWN GENERATION BY THE WILL OF GOD," 

" BEING DEAD, YET SPEAKETH :" 

AND, AS AN AFFECTIONATE TRIBUTE TO 

THE REV. ANDREW THOMSON, D.D., F.R.S.E., 

OF EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, 

SENIOR MEMBER OF THE DIRECTORY OF THIS LECTURESHIP, 

WHO, HAVING PASSED FOUR SCORE YEARS, AT HIS ADVANCED AGE 

STILL HOLDS FORTH THE WORD OF LIFE, 

PREACHING THE MESSAGE OF THE GOSPEL 

AND URGING THE CHURCH OF CHRIST TO GREATER FIDELITY 

IN HER MISSION TO MANKIND, 

THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED 

BY THE AUTHOR. 



INTRODUCTION. 
By Rev. Andrew Thomson, D.D., F.R.S.E., 

Edinburgh, Scotland. 



THE DUFF MISSIONARY LECTURESHIP. 

The Duff Missionary Lectureship was founded 
by William Pirie Duff, Esq., son of the Rev. Alex- 
ander Duff, D.D., LL.D. Dr. Duff was a man dis- 
tinguished alike by his fine genius, his glowing 
eloquence, and his Christian zeal — a man whose name, 
familiar as a household word in many parts of India 
at the present day, stands in the front rank of those 
great missionaries who have been incalculable blessings 
to India during recent generations. When Dr. Duff 
died on the twelfth of February, 1878, leaving his 
son, his heir, Mr. Duff immediately proceeded to 
make arrangements for the establishment and endow- 
ment of a quadrennial course of lectures on some 
subject " within the range of foreign missions, and 
cognate subjects," as a suitable memorial of the 
venerable missionary. He was prompted to this at 
once by filial piety and by the fact that, during his later 
years, his father had repeatedly expressed a wish that, 
as a means of perpetuating his influence, a considerable 
portion of the bequest which he would leave behind 
him, should be consecrated to this end. 

Trustees were appointed to arrange and admin- 
ister the trust, and these, being selected from the 
various evangelical denominations, fitly represented 



viii INTRODUCTION. 

Dr. Duff's catholicity of spirit. In the same spirit, 
it was provided that the lecturer should be a minis- 
ter, professor, or godly layman of any evangelical 
church, and that he should hold the lectureship for 
four years. The course must consist of not fewer 
than six lectures on his chosen subject, and these 
must be delivered in Edinburgh and Glasgow dur- 
ing the second year of his tenure of the lectureship, 
on consecutive Sabbath evenings in the months of 
January and February, and re-delivered at such 
other times and places as the Trustees might direct. 
A further condition, binding on the lecturer, was 
that he should print and publish, at his own expense 
and hazard, at least one hundred copies of his lectures, 
which he should distribute free of cost among the Trus- 
tees and libraries of evangelical churches and mission- 
ary societies at home and abroad, it being understood 
that then he should be at liberty to publish as many 
further copies as he might see fit, and the profits of 
which should belong to himself. In 1880, the ar- 
rangements had been completed, and, between that 
year and the present, four courses of lectures have 
been delivered, showing an interesting and edifying 
variety in the particular branch of the great subject 
treated by the lecturers, but each and all making a 
valuable contribution to the literature of Christian 
Missions. 



I. 

The Rev. Thomas Smith, D.D., professor of 
Evangelistic Theology in the Free Church of Scot- 
land, was chosen to deliver the first course of lee- 



INTRODUCTION. ix 

tures in the Duff Missionary Lectureship. Being 
amply satisfied with his qualifications in other re- 
spects, it was felt by the Trustees, as well as by Dr. 
Duff's own family, that there would be a seemly 
gracefulness in Dr. Smith's being appointed to lead 
the van of lecturers, arising from the fact that he had 
been associated with Dr. Duff in mission work, first 
in Bengal and afterwards in Edinburgh, for the long 
period of forty years, during all which time the 
friendship of the two men had been most intimate 
and uninterrupted ; while, to quote Dr. Smith's own 
words, ' ' he shared with the universal Church the 
sentiment of admiration of his gifts and veneration 
of his graces. " 

Dr. Smith's lectures were delivered in Edinburgh 
and Glasgow in the spring of 1880, and were seven in 
number. His selected theme was Mediaeval Missions, 
and the lectures were mainly historical and biograph- 
ical. But when we consider that the mediaeval ages 
extended over a period of a thousand years, namely, 
from the fifth Gentury to the Reformation, and that 
the geographical range of the word included all 
Europe and even large portions of Asia and Africa, 
besides ; it will be seen that the history of Christian 
missions, during so many ages and over so vast a 
space, could only be touched by the lecturer at certain 
points, and many of them not referred to at all. 
Nevertheless, Dr. Smith has done much within his nar- 
row limits to increase our knowledge of those periods 
in which attempts were made to Christianize nations 
in the mass and at the point of the sword, and when 
the change effected was, of course, little more than 
nominal. In almost every page, we can discern 



x INTRODUCTION. 

evidence that the lecturer knew a great deal more 
on the subjects treated by him than he was able to 
compress within the compass of seven lectures. He 
has done good and permanent service in separating 
the fabulous from the real, in disentangling knots 
that had perplexed earlier writers, in shedding addi- 
tional information at times upon the struggles of light 
with darkness, and in giving us good reasons for believ- 
ing that, even in the midst of much error that was 
mingled on some occasions in what was written, 
there was sufficient truth to lead anxious hearts 
to Christ. At times men rise before us in the 
narrative who were not missionaries merely, but 
reformers, influencing extensive regions and trans- 
mitting their light to succeeding generations; and 
who, like St. Patrick in Ireland and St. Columba in 
Scotland, with the sea-girt island of Iona as his centre 
of action, sending forth his evangelists over wide 
districts of Scotland to found Culdee settlements and 
" houses of Christ," did almost Apostolic work, and 
helped to prepare the way for the glorious Refor- 
mation that was to come. 



II. 

The second of the Duff missionary lecturers was 
the Rev. William Fleming Stevenson, D.D., minis- 
ter of Rathgar Presbyterian Church, Dublin, and 
convener of the Foreign Mission Committee of the 
Irish Presbyterian Church and Synod. He stood 
preeminent as a preacher among the ministers of his 
church, and his position as convener of its Foreign 
Mission Committee kept his mind in unbroken con- 



IN TR OD UC TION. xi 

tact with missions and missionaries. Everything 
was looked at by him from this sacred centre, and 
was coloured by it. Nor was this his only qualifica- 
tion; for before the period of his being engaged to 
be one of the Duff lecturers, he had visited nearly all 
the great mission fields in the world, especially those 
scattered over India, and had brought back with him 
gathered stores of knowledge from many lands, and 
a heart glowing with zeal and full of hope for the 
great future which seemed to brighten before him, 
for India and the world. 

He chose as the title of his course, "The Dawn of 
the Modern Mission," his intention being to restrict 
his lectures to the ages which immediately followed 
the Reformation, when the Protestant Churches had 
not yet been fired by the missionary spirit, or be- 
come alive to the all-embracing authority of the 
great gospel commission which included in it every 
Christian disciple : ' ' Go ye into all the world and 
preach the gospel to every creature." While indi- 
vidual men, such as Ziegenbalg and Zinzendorf and 
Schwartz, as if they had been born before their 
time, did noble work in their narrow spheres, and 
were as morning stars which foretold the rising of 
the sun, the Churches themselves were not yet 
awake. It is not unlikely that Dr. Stevenson hoped 
to have time and opportunity to record the later 
history of foreign missions, when the Churches should 
have awakened to their responsibility, and the dawn 
of the mission should have passed into the day. 
But this was not to be. Even his course of lectures 
on the Dawn of the Mission was never completed. 
In 1884, he delivered four lectures in the appointed 



xii IN TR OD UC TION. 

places. And these, in so far as he had strength to 
give them a full revision, were worthy of himself, 
distinguished by vigorous thought, comprehensive- 
ness of view, and literary beauty. His finely 
appreciative and living portraits of the great pio- 
neers of missions whom we have named, and of 
many others, could scarcely have been surpassed in 
their rich colouring and felicitous touches by any 
writers of his day. But death came with its sad in- 
terdict, the effect of overwork, and "in the mid- 
time of his days" he was summoned upward. His 
accomplished widow, who had been ' ' of one heart 
and soul " with him in all his cares and toils, super- 
intended the publication of the four lectures which 
he had delivered, under the felicitous title which he 
himself had chosen. In its incomplete form, the lit- 
tle volume is like a broken pillar, but the pillar is 
composed of the finest marble and it is chiselled 
with a master's hand. 



III. 

Sir Monier Monier Williams, the distinguished Orien- 
tal scholar, was the third lecturer appointed in con- 
nection with the Duff Missionary Lectureship. His 
chosen subject was Buddhism. And his first inten- 
tion was to present in seven lectures a scholarly 
sketch of true Buddhism. But he very soon per- 
ceived that in order to do justice to this form of false 
religion, which was the faith of so large a portion of 
the human race, it was necessary that he should ex- 
hibit it in connection with Brahmanism and Hindu- 
ism, and even Jainism, and also in its contrast with 



INTRODUCTION. xiii 

Christianity. And as the subject expanded in his 
mind, he became more and more convinced that any 
endeavour to give an outline of the whole subject of 
Buddhism in seven lectures would be " like the effort 
of a foolish man trying to paint a panorama of Lon- 
don on a sheet of note-paper." The result of this 
conviction was that the seven lectures multiplied 
into eighteen, the greater number of these far ex- 
ceeding in length the dimension of ordinary lectures 
which might be delivered in an hour. The literature 
of Buddhism has immensely gained by this expan- 
sion into a massive volume of 563 octavo pages; the 
parts which formed the lectures which were de- 
livered in Edinburgh in 1888 having been absorbed 
into the volume. 

In a modest and manly preface, the learned author 
claims for his elaborate treatise an individuality 
which separates it from those which have been 
written on the same vast subject by others, — an 
individuality which, as he says, may "commend it 
to thoughtful students of Buddhism as helping to 
clear a thorny road, and to introduce some order and 
coherence into the chaotic confusion of Buddhistic 
ideas." The unanimous favourable opinion of Ori- 
ental scholars, and the continuous and extensive sale 
of the book ever since its publication, far more than 
realized the hopes of the accomplished scholar; 
while its value and authority are greatly enhanced 
by the fact that, on three occasions, Sir Monier 
Monier Williams travelled through the "sacred 
land" of Buddhism, and carried on his investiga- 
tions personally in the place of its origin, as well as 
in Ceylon and on the borders of Thibet. 



INTRODUCTION. 



IV. 



The fourth and most recent Duff Lecturer was the 
Rev.ArthurT. Pierson,D.D., of Philadelphia, U.S.A., 
whose name is pleasantly familiar to the Churches 
of Christ on both sides of the Atlantic. The title of his 
lectures, which form the contents of the present vol- 
ume, is, ''The New Acts of the Apostles ; or, The 
Marvels of Modern Missions," and their design was to 
compare the Christian Church in the nineteenth cen- 
tury with the Church in the first century, especially 
in their missionary aspects, and to bring out the fea- 
tures of resemblance and of contrast between them. 
They were addressed in the early months of 1893, 
to crowded audiences, not only in Edinburgh and 
Glasgow, but in Aberdeen, Dundee and St. An- 
drew's, and some individual lectures were also 
delivered in other places, as in Arbroath. I had 
the pleasure of listening to some of them, and 
knowing as I did, that they had been composed by 
Dr. Pierson while he was occupying Mr. Spurgeon's 
place in the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London — a 
task which of itself would have exhausted and even 
overstrained the energies of most men — I was aston- 
ished at their power, and freshness, and varied excel- 
lence. They were as new and fragrant as the flowers 
of spring. His vigour and originality of thought, 
his extraordinary knowledge of all subjects connected 
with Christian missions, his ingenuity and skill in the 
exposition of Scripture, and in extracting from famil- 
iar texts new and unexpected stores of instruction, 
his inexhaustible command of anecdotes which 
helped to enrich and enliven his addresses, his power 



INTRODUCTION. xy 

of making external nature pay tribute to spiritual 
instruction, as well as the glowing fervour of his ap- 
peals — made multitudes listen unwearied for hours in 
hushed silence. I trust that the powerful impres- 
sions and healthful impulses, produced by his lectures 
when spoken, will be equalled in their influence and 
blessing when they are read, and I am sure that my 
honoured and beloved friend will own himself to 
have received in such results his richest reward. 

ANDREW THOMSON. 
Edinburgh, March, 1894. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 

In the winter of 1890, while wandering among the 
ruins of the picturesque abbey at Arbroath, Scotland, 
my eye rested upon an old and much worn headstone 
which had marked the grave of some member of 
that large family whose name I bear. Along the 
side of this slab could be distinctly traced the letters, 
Pierson, and the ancestral "coat of arms" graven 
upon the stone had not been quite obliterated by the 
unsparing hand of Time. In presence of such a 
memorial of my forefathers, I felt like a lad visiting 
the old homestead where his ancestors had dwelt, and 
ready, in a filial spirit, to render to dear old Scot- 
land any service asked of me. 

One might well hesitate to attempt to fill the ap- 
pointment to the " Duff Missionary Lectureship;" to 
follow such men as the heroic missionary, Rev. 
Thomas Smith, D.D., the seraphic advocate of 
missions, Rev. William Fleming Stevenson, D.D., 
and the accomplished scholar, Sir Monier Monier 
Williams; but, like Franklin at the Court of Ver- 
sailles, I may say, I come, ' ' not to succeed, but only 
to follow " those who have gone before me. 

To Dr. Alexander Duff, America owes a debt 
which can never be paid; and the visit of one of her 
sons to Scotland upon this errand was but a slight 
acknowledgment of that obligation, a tribute of the 
gratitude of my fellow-countrymen for that new im- 



xviii PREFACE. 

pulse imparted to missions by that eloquent advo- 
cate, who, in the year 1854, visited our shores and set 
us all aflame with his holy enthusiasm. 

By an undesigned coincidence, the opening lecture 
of this course fell, in Edinburgh, upon the exact 
anniversary of the death of Doctor Duff, February 
12, 1893, fifteen years after the departure of that 
illustrious man, who was the Raimond Lull of our 
century. 

One of the conditions of this trust is that each 
course of lectures shall, so far as practicable, be de- 
livered in the various academic centres of Scotland. 
Hence, I undertook to give the full course in Edin- 
burgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee, and three 
lectures in St. Andrew's also. 

Another condition of the lectureship is that the 
lectures shall, after delivery, appear in printed form. 
This made preparation with the pen necessary and 
proper, on a scale more extensive than was available 
for oral delivery, within the usual limits. In the 
lectures as given there was a fragmentary and 
perhaps disconnected character, which, it is hoped, 
may be relieved by that fuller and final form in 
which they now appear. 

For many years my habit has been to speak not 
only without manuscript, but without much pen- 
work in preparation. It was perhaps well that the 
necessity of furnishing material for the press com- 
pelled the writing of these lectures; for the theme 
became so absorbing that, but for this check upon 
my utterance, the treatment of it, like some of our 
American railways, might have lacked " solid foun- 
dations," " close connections," and " terminal facili- 



PRE FA CE. xix 

ties." Even in seeking finally to revise the manu- 
script for publication, Rousseau's remark seems 
forcibly verified, that "one half a man's life is too 
little to write a book — the other half too little to 
correct it when written." 

To make this volume as far as possible complete, 
I have undertaken, at no little cost both of toil and 
money, to add to it a Map of the World, which may 
exhibit to the eye the prevailing religions of the 
world, with their comparative territory and area, 
and may also show the progress of the Protestant 
missions of the world toward permeating and 
penetrating the habitable globe. In this part of 
my work I owe especial thanks to my friend, 
Mr. William E. Blackstone, of Oak Park, Illinois, 
whose careful research largely forms the basis of this 
valuable addition to my published lectures. 

It would be ungrateful to close this introductory 
word without acknowledging the many unselfish and 
untiring efforts of various friends who, in the several 
places of delivery, so largely contributed to whatever 
measure of success crowned my humble efforts to 
demonstrate and to illustrate the essential corre- 
spondence between the features of this missionary 
century and the age of the Apostles. 

Arthur T. Pierson. 

2320 Spruce St., Philadelphia, May, 1894. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 

THE NEW LINKS OF MISSION HISTORY. 

SECTION PAGE 

I. The New Chapters, .... 3 

II. The New Pentecosts, . . „ 11 

III. The New Times and Seasons, „ „ 19 

IV. The New Open Doors, . . . - 28 
V. The New Era, . . . . .38 

PART II. 

THE NEW APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 

I. The Calling of the New Apostles, 51 

II. The New Pioneers, .... 63 

III. The New Apostolate of Woman, . 133 

IV. The New Lessons, .... 141 

PART III. 

THE NEW VISIONS AND VOICES. 

I. The Leading Voice — The Voice of 

the Master, 147 

II. The Call to all Disciples, . . 152 

III. The Vision of the Field, . . 171 

IV. The New Lesson of the Power, . 189 
V. The New Ministry of the Spirit, . 196 



CONTENTS. 



PART IV. 

THE NEW CONVERTS AND MARTYRS. 

SECTION 

I. The Miracle of Conversion, 
II. New Converts and Martyrs, . 

III. Transformed Communities, . ' 

IV. The New Witnesses and Workers, . 



TAGB 
209 

213 

249 



PART V. 

NEW SIGNS AND WONDERS. 

I. The New Miracles, .... 293 

II. New Opportunities and Preparations, 305 

III. Providential Preservations, . . 309 

IV. New Judgments of God, . . . 318 
V. General Administration, . . . 322 

VI. Miracles of Grace, .... 329 

VII. Rapidity of Results, .... 340 

VIII. Answers to Prayer. . . . 352 



PART VI. 

THE NEW MOTIVES AND INCENTIVES. 

I. The Look Forward, 
II. The New Order of Things, 

III. Medical Missions, 

IV. The New Activity of Woman, 
V. New Lessons from Experience, . 

VI. New Incentives to Giving, 
VII. The New Appeal of Man, . 
VIII. Harmony with God's Purpose, 
IX. The Blessed Hope, 
X. The New Outlook, . 



375 
377 
382 
386 
389 
395 
405 
410 
414 
428 



Part I. 
THE NEW LINKS OF MISSION HISTORY 



THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 



Part I. — The New Links of Mission History. 



THE NEW CHAPTERS. 

God's coin has the mark of His mint, and bears 
His image and superscription. When His Son came 
to earth, though His divinity wore the disguise of our 
humanity, behind His robe of flesh there flashed upon 
His breast " the star of empire." And so, when the 
word of God came in the dress of human speech, it 
shone with the glory of God. 

The manifold uses of the Holy Scripture grow 
clearer as we study the inspired book. It is the key 
that unlocks all perplexities. As Arthur Hallam 
said, it proves itself God's book, because it is man's 
book, fitting every turn and curve of the human 
heart. Bengel's motto was: " Apply thyself wholly 
to the scriptures, and apply the scriptures wholly to 
thyself." The Son of God Himself found in His 
Father's word, His sword in temptation, His stay in 
trial, His guide in teaching ; its prophecies were the 
seals of His messiahship, its precepts the rule of His 
obedience, its promises the balm for His suffering ; 
through life He had no grander theme, and in death 
no richer legacy. Modern critics often handle it with 
irreverent hands, but to Him it was sacred in every 
part; and Michel Angelo's romantic devotion to the 
famous torso of Hercules in the Vatican, seeking to 
feel through touch the thrill of delight no longer 
granted through his blind eyes, is but a faint image 
of the divine and holy rapture with which Jesus 
studied the inspired Scriptures. 

World-wide missions present for solution a most 
perplexing practical problem. Where shall we come 



4 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

for guidance if not to these oracles of God ? Over 
these "pillars of Hercules " is forevermore written, 
nc plus ultra. Beyond this word there is nothing sat- 
isfactory, nothing needful. God has magnified His 
word above all His name, and here are hid all the 
treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 

This principle we seek now to apply to one book of 
the New Testament, which will be found to be both 
a history and a philosophy of missions in one. That 
book is the Acts of the Apostles. Here, what is 
found in the gospels in precept, is found in practice ; 
gospel teaching as set forth by the Evangelists, ap- 
plied actually and historically, by the coming of the 
Holy Spirit. 

Luke, who, in the gospel, tells us what Jesus " be- 
tran," in the Acts tells us what He " continued, both 
to do and teach," by the Spirit, through disciples, as 
to the kingdom of God. Here, as in the very order 
of the gospels, the door of faith is successively 
opened to Hebrew, Roman, and Greek believers. 
Pentecost links Old Testament prophecy with New 
Testament history. This is the book of witness : 
both man's witness to God, and God's witness to man ; 
the sequel of the gospels, the basis of the epistles; 
not so much the acts of the apostles, as the acts of 
the Holy Spirit and of the risen Redeemer in the 
person of the Paraclete. 

Here the Spirit is seen, first applying the truth 
and the blood to penitent believers, then anointing 
believers for service, then sending them forth as 
heralds and witnesses to preach the kingdom, to 
make disciples, and to organize disciples into 
churches. What meaning is wrapt up in the fact 
that the period of time covered by this book is only 
about thirty-three years — the length of our Lord's 
human life, the average of one generation — as though 
plainly meant to teach us what may be and should 
be done in every successive generation, until the 
end of the world-asfe itself ! 



THE NEW CHAPTERS. 5 

The Acts of the Apostles thus forms one great 
inspired book of missions: God's own commentary 
and cyclopedia for all ages, as to every question 
that touches the world's evangelization. 

The opening verses of each gospel narrative show 
a fourfold completeness and comprehensiveness; 
and what Bernard calls "a progress of doctrine:" 



MATTHEW: 

" The Book of the 
Generation of Jesus 
Christ, the Son of 
David," etc. 



MARK: 

" Thebeginning of 
the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ, the Son of 
God," etc. 



LUKE: 

.... "A declara- 
tion of those things 
which are most 
surely believed 
among us," etc. 



JOHN: 

" In the beginning 
was the Word, and 
the Word was with 
God and the Word 
was God," etc. 



Thus Matthew links on messianic predictions of the 
Old Testament to the historic chain of New Testa- 
ment events, tracing our Lord's human beginning 
as born of Mary but begotten of the Holy Spirit. 
Mark starts with His mature manhood, and shows 
the Divine messenger delivering his message. Luke 
sets forth an orderly statement of facts and truths 
held to be beyond dispute by primitive believers. 
John goes back beyond them all, to the eternity of 
the Divine Word. 

So do the initial chapters of the Acts bear marks 
of design as the sequel not of Luke's former treatise 
only, but of all the four accounts which this book 
follows. It braids together into one their four 
strands of testimony. In the structure of the New 
Testament this is the entablature resting upon and 
uniting the four columns which support it and which 
it surmounts. Hence, to read this book aright, we 
must perceive its fourfold character or aspect. It is 
the book of the advent of the Holy Spirit, and of the 
generation of the Church of Christ, begotten of the 
Spirit in the womb of our humanity. It is the 
beginning of the gospel of the Holy Spirit, the third 
person of the Godhead. It is the orderly setting 
forth of the great fact and truth of the Spirit's 
outpouring, as most surely believed among those 
who were eye-witnesses of His majestic advent. And 



6 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

it is the first clear revelation of the person of Him 
who as the Spirit of God was in the beginning with 
God and was God. 

In a word, just what the fourfold gospel is to 
Christ, the Acts of the Apostles is to the Spirit — the 
inspired account of His advent, and of the birth of the 
Bride of Christ ; the beginning of the gospel of the 
Spirit's presence and power; the declaration in order 
of that supreme secret of all holy living and faithful 
service, His inward working; and finally, the unveil- 
ing of His eternal identity with, and procession 
from, the Godhead. Truly this book is the Acts of 
the Holy Spirit. 

Thus the advent of the Spirit, and His activity in 
and through the Church, are the keys which open 
the doors to all the chambers in this House of the 
Interpreter. From the first chapter to the last, the 
theme is the same : the coming of the Spirit, to 
apply the truth, arouse the conscience, soften the 
heart, subdue the will, anoint the tongue, and hallow 
the lip — to take the place of the absent Lord — nay, to 
make real to believers the promise of His perpetual 
presence, by becoming to every renewed soul all that 
Christ would have been had He remained on earth. 

Upon one grand fact we lay great stress, and shall 
recur to it from time to time, that by blow upon 
blow repetition may deepen impression. This book 
of the Acts, which is to the Church the Principia 
embodying the great laws and principles for our 
guidance in the work of missions ; this book, which 
is the history of primitive missions, and like all his- 
tory is " philosophy teaching by examples," illustrat- 
ing the practical operation of these laws and principles 
during one whole generation — this book is manifestly 
and designedly incomplete, unfinished. 

This unfinished character is shown both by its be- 
ginning and its close. That " former treatise of all 
that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day 
in which He was taken up," implies this latter trea- 



THE NEW CHAPTERS. 7 

tise of all that He continued both to do and teach after 
that He was taken up. This introduction stamps this 
book as a continuance and sequel to a previous narra- 
tive, which is necessary to its full interpretation. 
Accordingly, we are prepared to see Christ in the 
Acts continuing His words and works through the 
Spirit. He who for forty days after His resurrec- 
tion gave in His personal presence many infallible 
proofs of the reality of that resurrection, here gives 
equally infallible proofs of His perpetual presence in 
the work of the Holy Spirit. 

How long will He continue thus to do and teach ? 
So long as He has a believing body of disciples who 
still go forth into all the world as witnesses bearing 
His message. The wondrous story opens with the en- 
duement of power, and throughout exhibits its effect 
in qualifying witnesses for their work : nor is there 
any hint that this Power ever was, or will be, with- 
drawn. The narrative stops, but the history goes on. 
Wherever devout disciples claim in prayer and by 
faith their full share in that Pentecostal fulness, they 
may go forth endued with power from on High. 
Wherever, from that day to this, Christ's witnesses 
have gone forth in obedience to His word, the same 
essential marks as in the Apostolic age have attended 
their service and explained their success. 

If now we turn to the conclusion of the Acts, we 
find a close so abrupt that it suggests yet again a con- 
tinuance and sequel. The curtain of silence suddenly 
falls upon a scene of continued action. Paul, dwell- 
ing in his own hired house, is still seen receiving all 
who come unto him, preaching the Kingdom of God, 
and teaching those things which concern the Lord 
Jesus Christ. Not only the act, but even the scene, 
is incomplete. Paul's life is not brought to a close, 
and his work at Rome is yet going on. Surely this is 
an unfinished picture ; the canvas awaits other touches 
and tints from the Divine Artist; new scenes in mis- 
sionary history are to supply new material for sug- 



8 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

gestion. These last two verses furnish a formula for 
record for all true witnesses through all aftertime. 
Change but the name, and the number of the years, 
and each successive disciple may here find a brief 
epitome of his life and labour; for whoever, by ful- 
filling his mission, adds one more unpretending entry 
to this Apostolic record, belongs to the Apostolic suc- 
cession. You may think of yourself as less than the 
least of all saints, yet if, in obedience to your Lord 
and dependence on His Spirit, you spread the good 
tidings, to you is this grace given to add and form 
one more link in that golden chain that reaches from 
the upper chamber of the Jewish capital to the bridal 
chamber of the New Jerusalem, and which unites in 
one glorious succession all in whom Jesus thus con- 
tinues by the Spirit to speak and work. 

We have therefore written intelligently and dis- 
criminatingly, in referring to the Acts of the Apostles, 
as closing rather than ending, for the story comes to 
no proper conclusion, and is designedly left incom- 
plete. Here is the story of a generation ; and no gen- 
eration ever reaches completeness, but is linked and 
woven into the next, and its history merges into that 
of its successor as to-day melts into to-morrow. So, 
most of all is it in the work of missions. It is so 
far one work that no eye can trace the point where 
the mission of one of God's witnesses ends and that 
of another begins. Paul's preaching and teaching 
still form threads in the fabric of missionary history, 
and will unto the end. 

But in a grander sense the Acts of the Apostles 
reaches no conclusion. When the late Bishop of 
Ripon characterized the thrilling story of the Apos- 
tle of the South Seas as the ' ' Twenty-ninth chapter 
of the Acts of the Apostles," he was but partly right. 
To that striking remark history adds one criticism 
and correction : that was a new chapter, but not the 
first new chapter added since Apostolic days. Long 
before John Williams sailed upon his holy mission, 



THE NEW CHAPTERS. 9 

many additions had been made to that unfinished 
book. Of some of these chapters we have no human 
memorial : they are written only by the Recording 
Angel in God's Book of Remembrance, to be un- 
sealed when those other books are opened and read 
amid the flaming splendours of the Great White 
Throne. But it is sublimely true that the triumph- 
ant advance of that Tottenham lad who became the 
great witness for the gospel in the Pacific Polynesia, 
added a new and glorious chapter to the annals of 
Apostolic Missions. And so far and so fast as Apos- 
tolic working and witnessing have survived and re- 
vived, so far and so fast have new chapters in the 
Acts been enacted, if not written. Nor will the age 
of missions ever end, until this Divine Mission of 
witness to men is accomplished. And therefore is 
this book left incomplete, as it always will be while 
one believer is left to teach and preach those things 
which concern the Lord Jesus Christ and to fill up 
that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in 
his own flesh for His body's sake, — which is the 
Church. 

Our present purpose, then, is declared in advance. 
We shall treat the age of Modern Missions, and 
especially the century of organized missionary ac- 
tivity since Carey led the way, as an illustration of 
this continuation of the Acts of the Apostles. We 
shall note some points of comparison and of con- 
trast between the Apostolic age and our own. We 
shall look in this book for the clue to some of the in- 
tricate, complicate problems of missions, and care- 
fully and prayerfully search to find the secrets of 
success in world-wide witness. 

As both brevity and unity of treatment will be 
conserved by setting proper limits to this discussion, 
we shall consider, first, the new Pentecosts and the 
new openings of doors ; then the calling and sending 
forth of the new apostles; then the new voices and 
visions ; then the new converts and martyrs ; then the 



10 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

new signs and wonders; and finally, the new hopes 
and incentives. 

For such a study both the writer and reader may 
well invoke higher help. There is something un- 
usually solemn in treating such a theme. We are to 
occupy our minds with the New Chapters in the 
Acts of the Apostles. Only a spiritual eye can read 
them: only a spiritual mind interpret them. With 
no careless hand would we venture to fill out the 
sacred outlines of missionary biography and history, 
and, peradventure, add another touch to God's un- 
finished book. But if that same Spirit who guided 
the pen of the Evangelist as he wrote this latter 
treatise, shall deign to open our eyes and direct our 
gaze, we shall be able to read the records which 
history has imperfectly written, and gather inspira- 
tion for such holy living and heroic serving as shall 
add yet other chapters in the days to come ! 



II. 

THE NEW PENTECOSTS. 

Owen, in his Pneumatologia, affirms that every age 
has its own test of orthodoxy or apostasy, and that 
the criterion of a standing or falling Church in this 
age is found in its attitude toward the Spirit of God. 
The gospel age is especially His dispensation. 
This divine person peculiarly fills the horizon as we 
study the Acts of the Apostles; and we cannot open 
the pages of this book of the Acts without starting 
an inquiry which is first in order and fundamental 
in importance. What is the actual place which 
Pentecost fills in Christian history? Was that out- 
pouring both the first and the last, or only the fore- 
most in a series of similar effusions? Was that 
revelation of the Spirit's power and presence full 
and final, or was it, like Christ's own advent, but the 
beginning of miracles and wonders with others to 
follow? and is that first advent of the Spirit to be 
succeeded by another, even more glorious, at the 
end of the age? 

( Christ's Incarnation was, in fact, a hiding of His 
true self behind a veil of flesh. J His star in the East, 
seen by a few wise watchers, guided them to his 
cradle, and a few holy souls who waited for His 
salvation were not taken by surprise. A little band 
of disciples felt His charms and bowed to His claims : 
they saw His glory shine at times when, as in the 
Transfiguration and Ascension, His disguise was laid 
aside. In fact, His Baptism, Transfiguration, Resur- 
rection, Ascension, were so many stages of revela- 
tion of His glory, which is to be fully disclosed 
when, at His second coming, the curtain is finally 
lifted, and the last act in this divine drama completes 
the marvellous manifestation, 
n 



/' 



12 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

There is a mystery of correspondence between 
Christ and the Paraclete. Possibly that upper cham- 
ber was but the cradle of the Spirit's revelation : other 
and higher unfoldings and unveilings of His grace 
and glory are yet to follow; more signal triumphs 
over Satan; louder and clearer voices and visions of 
God ; new raptures and radiances when devout souls, 
transfigured in His presence, are changed from glory 
to glory by the Lord the Spirit, as they with open 
face behold His supernal beauty. That coming of 
the Spirit may have been, like the blush of the ' ' con- 
scious water " at Cana, only the beginning of mira- 
cles, wherein He showed forth His glory, a type and 
prophecy of things to come. This question is not 
one of idle curiosity, but of practical value; and is 
reverently raised at the vestibule of this theme, be- 
cause upon our answer all that follows is dependent. 

It has been commonly assumed, without Scriptural 
warrant, that on the day of Pentecost the Spirit was, 
once for all, poured out, thenceforth to dwell in the 
individual believer, and especially in the collective 
body of believers — the Church; and some hold that 
to pray for the outpouring of the Spirit, either upon 
saints or sinners, implies absurdity and contradiction, 
since He is already bestowed upon and abiding in 
the Church. 

To this position exception may certainly be taken. 
First of all, there is in the way an exegetical diffi- 
culty. The inspired Scriptures are marked by an 
exactness in the use of words which shows that the 
Spirit guided in language as well as in thought. When 
Peter quotes that unique prediction of Joel, " I will 
pour out of my Spirit upon all fiesh," his words are 
carefully chosen. He does not say: " Now is f til filled 
that which was foretold by Joel;" but, "this is that 
which was spoken by the prophet Joel." 

Precision is one mark of perfection, and to perfec- 
tion nothing is trivial. Matthew's uniform phrase, 
when he refers to the coincidences and convergences 



THE NE W PENTECOSTS. 13 

of prophecy and history is, "then was fulfilled," or 
"so that it was fulfilled which was spoken by the 
prophet" — often naming the prophet. But, when 
referring to Christ's residence in Nazareth, he, for 
the first and only time uses the plural — " that it might 
be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets: He 
shall be called a Nazarene;" because while no single 
prediction was thus accomplished, the trend of many 
prophecies is in this direction. So in the Gospel 
according to John, it is very noticeable with what 
accuracy of precision two prophecies are referred to 
in connected verses, yet in different terms. Christ's 
legs were not broken, but His side was pierced ; and 
it is added, as to the former fact, ' ' that the Scripture 
should be fulfilled, a bone of Him shall not be 
broken;" but, as to the latter, "and again another 
Scripture saith, they shall look on Him whom they 
pierced." In this latter case the prediction is yet to 
be fulfilled* and hence while the language of pre- 
diction is applied to the event by way of correspond- 
ence, how carefully is the record guarded so as not 
to exclude its true fulfilment hereafter. 

Peter might naturally have said, at Pentecost, "Now 
is fulfilled that which was spoken;" but Joel's predic- 
tion was not then fulfilled. The ' ' great and terrible 
day of the Lord " is yet to come, and the wonders in 
heaven above and in the earth beneath have yet to 
be wrought. And another and greater effusion — the 
universal outpouring of the Spirit upon all flesh — is 
in the future. Joel's prophecy, though not fulfilled, 
furnished the true philosophy of Pentecost, explain- 
ing what was then seen and heard. Spectators said, 
" these men are full of new wine." Peter answered, 
that this was not spirituous intoxication but spiritual 
exhilaration; they were not drunk with wine wherein 
is excess, but were filled with the Spirit, the new 
wine from heaven's vineyards. Careful comparison 
of the second chapters of Joel and of the Acts must 

* Comp. Revelation i, 7. 



14 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

convince us that the cup of prediction has not yet 
been full to the brim, and waits for a more copious 
outpouring. Pentecost was the summer shower after 
long drought; the final outpouring will make springs 
gush forth and turn the desert into a garden, and a 
thousand rills, singing their song, shall blend in 
rivers of grace that roll like a liquid anthem to the 
sea. 

There is also a grammatical reason for not limiting 
to the original Pentecost the Spirit's outpourings. 
Different prepositions are used to express the rela- 
tions of the Spirit to the believer. A sharp line 
seems drawn between " in " or " within," and " on " 
or "upon." When the work of the Spirit in regen- 
erating, renewing, sanctifying, is referred to, "in" 
and " within " represent His permanent work and 
abiding presence : for character must be perpetual. 
But when His office in qualifying for service by 
special enduement is referred to, " on " and " upon " 
are the prepositions commonly used to express that 
endowment or enduement which is not permanent 
but is for the period of such service. 

This distinction is more than grammatical : it is 
philosophical. A renewed heart must neither lose its 
renewal nor let go its Renewer. But the anointed 
tongue needs its special unction only while it is used 
in witness for Christ. Charles G. Finney held that a 
true servant of God might have more than one en- 
duement, and that he who, even in spiritual self-cul- 
ture, forgets his call to service, may forfeit his en- 
duement. It is possible to be so absorbed in the 
permanent ministry of the indwelling Spirit as to 
overlook the occasional ministry of the enduing Spirit. 

Even if it be conceded that, on the day of out- 
pouring, the Spirit was once for all given in saving 
and sanctifying power, it does not follow that He 
does not, from time to time, come anew to saints in 
gifts of power for witnessing and working. Some 
careful Bible students regard Pentecost as a baptism 



THE NEW PENTECOSTS. 15 

wherein the Spirit was outpoured as into a vast reser- 
voir, and would now urge disciples to ask not for a 
baptism of the Spirit, but to be filled with the Spirit, 
like empty vessels dipped into this Divine fulness. 

But our contention is not for a form of statement. 
The one practical question is, whether we are in 
faith and by prayer to seek for new effusions of power 
from on High, for tongues of fire to make our witness 
a Divine flame. Here lies the hope of world-wide 
missions. Without some new unction from the 
Spirit, we shall never feel that burning fire shut up in 
our bones which compels us to witness; nor will our 
witness without that be a power. If that lost art 
of Apostolic days may be recovered to the Church, it 
were worth while to learn it in the severe school of 
fasting and prayer. A Church half asleep, a world 
wholly dead, wait for such a renaissance. 

Yet a third argument is the historical. As a fact 
Pentecost was not the last, but only the first out- 
pouring. It actually opened a series of such mani- 
festations. This book of the Acts records repeated 
wonders similar in kind if not in degree. 

When Philip preached in Samaria, and the rumour 
of his success reached Jerusalem, Peter and John 
were sent thither by the Apostles; and when they 
came down they prayed for the Samaritan converts 
that " they might receive the Holy Ghost; for as yet 
He was fallen upon none of them." And they also 
received the Spirit, similar signs following as at 
Jerusalem. 

Again, at Cesarea, when Peter first preached to a 
representative Roman audience, as he began to 
speak the Holy Spirit fell on them, and, as he ex- 
pressly adds, "as on us at the beginning." Here, 
once more, were the signs of the first Pentecost 
wrought, repeated even in the gift of tongues. The 
gathering of the kinsmen, friends and retainers of 
the Centurion in the palace of the Caesars is believed 
to have exceeded in number the original hundred 



16 THE XEJV ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

and twenty at Jerusalem; certainly the results were 
proportionately larger, for the Holy Spirit fell on all 
those that heard the word, not only in advance of 
baptism but, apparently, of believing also. And here 
possibly we have a forecast of the final outpouring 
upon all fie si i. 

Yet again, at Ephesus, among the Greeks, Paul 
found certain disciples, probably adherents of Apollos, 
who, like him, had not got beyond John's preliminary 
baptism of repentance ; and when Paul laid hands on 
them, the Holy Spirit came upon them also, and 
they spake with tongues and prophesied. 

Thus, within the bounds of this book and the limits 
of one generation, three instances are on record sub- 
sequent to the day of Pentecost, when in each case, 
with language most explicit, the Spirit is said to have 
''come upon," " fallen upon, " been "received," by 
disciples. If within forty years there were four dis- 
tinct and separate outpourings in the Apostolic age, 
who is competent to say that in the centuries succeed- 
ing there have been no other Pentecostal effusions, 
and some of them scarcely less wonderful in some re- 
spects and aspects than that earliest enduement? 
May there not be modern saints upon whom the Spirit 
has not yet fallen in the Pentecostal sense, but would 
come in power in answer to believing prayer ? 

Recent history argues with the resistless logic of 
events that Pentecostal wonders may be repeated. 
This modern missionary century has been made both 
lustrous and illustrious by outpourings of the Spirit, in 
some respects surpassing any recorded in Apostolic 
days. Witness the story of Tahiti and all Western 
Polynesia; of the Hawaiian, Marquesan, Micronesian 
groups ; of New Zealand, Madagascar and the Fiji 
Islands; of Nanumaga under Thomas Powell; of 
Sierra Leone under William Johnson; of the missions 
in the valley of the Nile, in Zululand, and on the 
Gaboon River; in Banza Manteke under Henry Rich- 
ards, and Basutoland under Dr. Moffat. Read the me- 



THE NEW PENTECOSTS. 17 

moirs of Dr. Grant and Fidelia Fiske in Oroomiah ; of 
Mackay in Uganda and his namesake in Formosa. Fol- 
low the work of Judson in Burma, of Boardman 
among the Karens ; of Cyrus Wheeler on the Euphra- 
tes, of Clough and Jewett at Ongole, of William Dun- 
can in his Metlakahtla and Joseph Neesima in his 
Doshisha. What are these, and hundreds more that 
might be cited, but instances of mighty outpourings, 
in all essentials reproducing Pentecostal signs and 
wonders, often on a scale of majesty and magnificence 
scarcely paralleled. 

If this preliminary question seem to have undue 
heed given to it, it is for a purpose. Our supreme 
aim is to offset the discouraging lack and need of 
spiritual life and power by the encouraging fact that 
from time to time, and in many cases, that original 
blessing of Pentecost has in its main features been 
repeated. The history of missions with uplifted 
finger points to the glowing and glorious records on 
her shining scroll, and solemnly attests the fact that, 
wherever the most consecrated witnesses have gone 
faithfully preaching the gospel, there God has exhib- 
ited His power and bestowed His new Pentecosts. 

These divine marvels have been wrought especially 
in the following forms : 

First, in the manifest calling and anointing of special 
messengers to bear the tidings. 

Secondly, in the providential removal of the natural 
barriers of language, furnishing, for the rapid acquisi- 
tion of strange tongues, facilities which were unknown 
in ancient times. 

Thirdly, in the preparation for the universal diffu- 
sion of the gospel message, through numerous transla- 
tions of the word of God and Christian literature. 

Fourthly, in the sudden and strange subduing even 
of hostile communities and rulers, when human influ- 
ences were wholly inadequate. 

Fifthly, in marked and multiplied cases of conver- 
sion and the transformation of whole peoples. 



18 THE NMW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

Pentecost may have been repeated in modern times 
without reproducing its exact original features. Sim- 
ilar effects do not depend on uniform causes, nor do 
similar causes always produce uniform effects. Facts 
assume various forms, and are independent of them. 
God does not waste power, nor use the supernatural 
where the natural suffices. When human hands may 
as well take away the stone, He does not bid it move 
without hands or send angels to roll it away. The 
great Economist of the Universe works no needless 
miracles. He may choose not to bestow the gift of 
tongues, while He so stimulates philological re- 
search as that a hundred languages hitherto without 
written form have their alphabet and grammar, lexi- 
con and literature ; and the word of God is without a 
miracle both preached and translated in over three 
hundred vernaculars. In our day, within a space of 
time in which Paul could scarcely have found his way 
to strange peoples, our missionaries learn to preach in 
their tongues, and then teach them to read and write 
their own language and present them with the word 
of God as the first printed book in their own speech. 
So multiplied and marvellous are the facilities for the 
rapid acquisition of the great tongues of mankind 
that Bengali, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Sanskrit, 
may be learned in the Universities of England and 
America. This is something more than a triumph 
of human scholarship ; it belongs to the Theology of 
Inventions, and is part of God's wonder workings. 
In these and many other ways He who bestowed mi- 
raculous blessing at the Pentecost in Jerusalem is giv- 
ing in His own unique fashion New Pentecosts of 
privilege and power to a witnessing Church. 



III. 

THE NEW TIMES AND SEASONS. 

The work of a master hand is seen in the mutual 
fitness of all its parts. There are a few phrases 
which God meant should be the watchwords of mis- 
sions. They are trumpet tongued, they are fit sig- 
nals for advance, whose clarion call should peal all 
along the lines ; and when heard by obedient souls, 
they have an electrifying power to arouse to action. 
Among them this is worthy to ring out like the blast 
of Gabriel's trump: 

The Fulness and Fitness of Times. 

Here is the hiding of a divine idea. In Abra- 
ham's day, judgment waited, because the iniquity 
of the Amorites was not yet full. The vividness of 
the metaphor is startling. We see the cup slowly 
filling, and then running over with the blood-red 
wine of sin. Judgment calmly waits until the scarlet 
flood reaches the brim and overflows the iron chalice, 
and then He who is patient because He is eternal, 
empties the phial of His righteous wrath, and war, 
pestilence, famine, earthquake, pour their woes upon 
the earth. So oftentimes in human history, retribu- 
tion waited for the fit and full season of judgment. 

For blessing, as well as cursing, there is a fitness 
and fulness of times. The advent of Messiah 
waited till the world was made ready, and the fit 
and full time had come for Christ to be born. The 
obelisks of prophecy had for hundreds of years stood 
unread, waiting for the Champollion of history to 
interpret their hieroglyphs, and give meaning to 
their mysteries. All false faiths, weighed in the bal- 
ances, had been found wanting. Persian civilization 
with its sun adoration, Greek civilization with its 
wisdom and art, Roman civilization with its law 

19 



20 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

and valor, Indian civilization with its philosophy 
of contemplation, Chinese civilization with its ances- 
tral worship — all these had utterly and confessedly 
failed to arrest decay; and even Judaism was but a 
skeleton-leaf of forms, whence the sap of piety had 
fled. There was a felt need of some great religious 
reform. 

There was preparation positive as well as nega- 
tive. Roman roads had run a highway from the 
golden mile-stone in the Forum to the ends of the 
earth ; and the Greek dialect had even in Syria forged 
swift wheels for the Gospel chariot to speed along 
the highway. Universal peace reigned, and war no 
longer set nations at variance, locking their gates 
and shutting their ports. The common and con- 
scious want of a more satisfying faith was the 
prophecy of a new teacher and deliverer; and in 
every land there were seers who watched for the star 
that heralded the advent of "The Desire of All 
Nations." 

Just at this time, the first and only point in the 
annals of the race where such converging lines met, 
while so many facts hinted one grand issue, and so 
many voices blended in one loud appeal, a virgin of 
Bethlehem felt in her womb the quickening of the 
Holy Spirit, and the greatest birth of the ages gave 
to man Jesus, the world's Saviour. When the 
fulness of time was come God sent forth His Son, to 
bring fulfilment to prediction and redemption to 
humanity. The advent of the long-promised seed of 
the woman had awaited its full hour. Both His 
cradle and His cross were ready; the believer and 
the betrayer were both at hand. Never before, as 
never since, had God's clock of the ages struck an 
hour so awfully meet for the crisis of history. 

Here was another of what Dr. Croly, half a century 
ago, called " the birth hours " of the race. Man's 
advent was the first; the advent of Christ, another; 
and the period of the great Reformation was another. 



THE NEW TIMES AND SEASONS. 21 

That religious revolution whose leaders were John 
de Wyclif and John Bunyan in England, John Knox 
in Scotland, John Huss in Bohemia, John Calvin in 
Switzerland, Luther in Germany, Savonarola in 
Italy, was, if not a new birth hour, at least a resur- 
rection morn, to the long-buried Apostolic faith. 
After a thousand years in the sepulchre of the dark 
ages, rolling away the stone of sacerdotalism, burst- 
ing the cerements of formalism and traditionalism, 
breaking the scarlet seal of Papal infallibility and 
inviolability, behold, coming forth into new life, the 
imperial truth of justification by faith ! 

When, one hundred years ago, the hand of 
William Carey rung out from the belfry of the ages, 
the signal for a new crusade of missions, a fourth birth 
hour of history struck ; and even yet we are but half 
awake to the full significance of this new signal. It 
may be well for us to stop and ask how we are to 
recognize God's plan in our generation, and fall into 
line with His majestic march — in other words, what 
are the signs that God's fitness and fulness of times 
has come? 

Our Lord rebuked the Pharisees and Sadducees 
when they demanded a sign from heaven, because 
they were keener observers and safer interpreters of 
the weather signals than of the signs of the times. 
In the red and glowing sky of sunset, in the lurid 
and lowering sky of sunrise, they saw the forecast of 
the fair or foul day succeeding; but to God's signals 
that flame and flash on the prophetic and historic 
horizon, they were blind. 

Behind this rebuke hides an indirect hint that to the 
devout watcher history becomes prophecy. The 
morning forecasts the evening; and to-day, to- 
morrow. God gives us premonitory and preparatory 
signs of His providential purpose, and we should be 
on the alert to detect them. 

The un devout historian is mad. Only the fool 
says in his heart there is no God in history. Of the 



22 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

world of events as of the world of matter, it is true 
that "every house is builded by some builder; and 
He who built all is God." History is not a heap of 
"disjecta membra" but an articulated body, made 
upon a plan, and with joints and bands compacted. 
In God's book all coming events were written, when 
as yet there was none of them, in continuance to be 
fashioned as His eternal purpose should be wrought 
into form. Weather forecasts may fail, but God's 
signs and signals are sure. 

Because the present, rightly read, predicts the 
future, because God's fit, full time gives prophetic 
and providential indications of its approach, of what 
immense importance is it for us to get a proper point 
from which to view the horizon, and then to keep 
up our watch ! The golden chalice which is filling is 
God's purpose; its flood is man's opportunity. And 
whenever God's full time comes, the angel whose 
stride spans sea and land declares: " There shall no 
longer be delay!" Then, or never, we fall into line 
with God's movement. His times and tides wait for 
no man. Swiftly His plan sweeps on to its goal, 
leaving behind the sluggard and the idler. Ye 
watchers, be ready, and when the full hour is come 
for the work and war of the ages, stand in your lot 
and be not found faithless! 

How then are we to read God's signals, and what are 
the signs on our horizon ? 

To him who, in the study of current events would 
read the immediate future, God gives two guides: 
inspired prophecy and converging providence. When 
the two combine, practical certainty results; for 
when prediction nears fulfilment, and providential 
events converge toward the same centre, the true seer 
finds clear foretokens of what is at hand. 

Let us apply these criteria to the great birth 
hours already noted. Christ's Incarnation did not 
surprise such devout seers as Simeon and Anna. 
They knew that the seventy heptades of years which 



THE NEW TIMES AND SEASONS. 23 

were to elapse before the coming of Messiah the 
Prince, were about complete, and as students of the 
prophetic word, they were on the watch-tower look- 
ing toward Bethlehem. The universal exhaustion of 
man's resources, the wide prevalence of peace, the 
common expectation of a coming Deliverer, were 
fingers all pointing in the same direction, and so 
prophecy and providence confirmed each other's wit- 
ness to the nearness of the Advent of Immanuel ; and 
so that ''just and devout man" who was "waiting 
for the consolation of Israel " was not found stagger- 
ing in unbelief when the infant Jesus was laid in his 
arms ; and that aged prophetess who came into the 
temple at that same instant, was prepared both to 
accept the Messiah in His swaddling clothes, and 
speak of Him to others who " looked for redemption, 
in Jerusalem." To God's watchers, like them, the 
Advent was the crown of expectation and anticipa- 
tion. 

The Reformation era came not without horizon 
signals. Long before, in parables, vivid as panoramic 
pictures, Christ had hinted the history and ' ' mystery 
of the Kingdom of Heaven," the sowing of the seed 
and the growing of the plant; the tares of hypocrisy 
and the leaven of heresy; the period of apparent 
decay, when the precious treasure was buried in the 
field or sunk in the sea, to be dug up and dived after. 
Such figures seem meant to forecast the accession of 
Constantine, with the inroads of formalism, secular- 
ism and scepticism, and the thousand years of night- 
shade when evangelical truth was buried beneath 
the rubbish of forms and falsehood. The next two 
scenes in this parabolic series hint the finding of the 
hid treasure and the recovery of the priceless 
pearl. 

But if the forecast of prophecy was dim, converg- 
ing providences lit up the horizon with clearer rays 
that told of a new dawn after the dark ages. The 
marshalling of events was signally significant. In 



24 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

the middle of the fifteenth century the fall of Con- 
stantinople had started the revival of learning. 
Greek scholars, dispersed over Europe with their 
manuscripts of the New Testament, opened the door 
and paved the way for the translation of the Word 
into other tongues and its wide dissemination among 
the people. In the last decade of that century, a 
new route to the Indies linked Protestant Britain 
with the heart of Oriental heathenism; also a new 
world was unveiled toward the sunset. This was like- 
wise the period of the fall of feudalism, and of the 
assertion of individualism with its doctrine of human 
rights and personal liberty. 

The theology of inventions found grand illustra- 
tion. The reformation in philosophy ushered in a revo- 
lution in science. The mariner's compass then first 
coming into common use, began to act as a pilot over 
unknown seas. The printing-press in 1450 issued its 
first book, and that, a Latin Bible. The steam en- 
gine, too, between the meridian hours of that cen- 
tury and the next, supplied man with a new motive 
power. And so, just as Luther's hammer was heard 
nailing his theses to " All Saints' " door, God was 
loudly calling all saints to rally about the reformed 
standard, give the Bible to the common folk, and 
vindicate their right to read and interpret it for them- 
selves; and to go on swift keels and wheels to the 
very bounds of the globe with the message of the 
Reformed Faith. 

We take one more illustration of the signs of the 
times, nearer to our day and pertinent to our duty. 

That any of God's watchers could misread the signs 
of the times, in William Carey's day, is to us now a 
marvel. In all prophecy an age of world-wide evangel- 
ism is foretold ; and in that prophetic panorama in 
the thirteenth of Matthew, the recovery of the 
treasure and the pearl is followed by the casting of 
the drag-net into the sea, and by great hauls of fish. 
All prediction treads toward one goal. Abram had 



THE NEW TIMES AND SEASONS. 25 

the promise of a blessing to come through him to 
" all the families of the earth;" and all down the 
ages, with voices growing ever louder and clearer, 
prophets had told of a day of world-wide missions. 
Christ plainly taught that before the end of the age 
the Gospel must first be preached as a witness among 
all nations. 

Many fingers pointed to the close of the last cen- 
tury as God's time for the new era of missions. 
While the former half of the century witnessed an 
awful decline which threatened complete apostasy, 
the latter half was the most remarkable era of re- 
vived piety and evangelistic preaching since the 
days of Paul. Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley and 
Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, Walker of Truro 
and Fletcher of Madeley, William Grimshaw and Wil- 
liam Romaine, Daniel Rowlands and Rowland Hill, 
John Berridge and Henry Venn, James Hervey and 
William Toplady, and others like-minded, began as 
the evangelists of a new era to stir a half dead 
Church to proclaim the Gospel to the poor and out- 
cast classes. The two Northamptons answered to 
each other across the sea, and Carey, whose cobbler's 
bench was a watch-tower, saw that for missions to 
the heathen God's fit and full time was come. For 
ten years he bore the brunt of sneer and taunt, and 
the worse hostility of inertia and indifference ; felt 
the keen sting of Sydney Smith's wit and the sharp 
rebuke of John Ryland's hyper-calvinism. But when 
God lets loose a thinker and a seer — when a saint gets on 
his knees watching the dawn, and sees God's signals 
flashing — floods and flames cannot stay his progress. 
Between the Scylla of apathy and the Charybdis of 
antipathy, Carey boldly steered for India. While 
others slept he had been on the watch. He had seen 
God's signs and heard God's step, and he dared not 
falter or delay; he must move, though he moved 
alone. 



26 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

Another birth hour of history has now come, and 
blessed are the sages who see the star that guides to 
the cradle of the new age of missions. Even yet, 
not every eye sees the vision of God or catches its 
full meaning. One of the wisest thinkers of the age 
says, that "nothing but deep initiation into the 
Spirit of the Bible can enable us to form the faintest 
idea as to what historical events belong most to the 
divine plan, or have most relation to the Kingdom of 
the Eternities." If there be any defect in these 
words, it is in lack, not excess, of emphasis. 

There was One who was in the world, and the 
world was made by Him and the world knew Him 
not. He came to His own possessions and His own 
people received Him not. This is the one parable 
and paradox of all ages. There is One who is in his- 
tory, and all history is His curious handiwork, and 
yet even historians recognize Him not. He comes 
to the age which is of His own framing and moves 
amid events which unfold His own eternal plan, and 
yet His own people too often receive Him not. But 
to as many as receive Him, recognize His majestic 
presence and beneficent providence, to them He 
gives authority to become co-workers with God, 
sharers in the glory of divine achievement. 

The conviction grows upon us that the birth hour, 
now fully come, is in some aspects the most im- 
portant crisis of all history. It marks the nativity of 
twin offspring. Time has brought forth two giants: 
Opportunity and Responsibility. And as might be 
expected, never before has there been such combina- 
tion and concentration of world-wide signals. The 
whole horizon is aflame with aurora borealis lights — 
fingers of fire which reach toward the zenith as if to 
point man's gaze upward to God. Our risk is not so 
much that we shall not see these signs, as that we 
shall not feel their force and read their lesson. 
Marvels are so common that they cease to be start- 
ling. The blare of God's trumpets dulls our ears by 



THE NEW TIMES AND SEASONS. 27 

its peal, and the flare and glare of His flash-lights 
dims our eyes by its glory. 

This is no exaggeration of rhetoric or outburst of 
enthusiasm. The half of the wonders of this age 
have never been told, and their full meaning yet 
awaits an interpreter. Let any devout student of 
history, any sagacious seer of God who reads the 
signs of the times, tell us what is the forecast of the 
future. Behind the developments of our day is a 
divine directing power. A man's hand writes on the 
wall ; but the writing is a decree of God, telling of 
world powers and of false faiths, weighed in the bal- 
ances and found wanting; and of a Conqueror about 
to receive the Kingdom which human monarchs are 
unworthy to administer. 



IV. 
THE NEW OPEN DOORS. 

That" word Opportunity is a pictorial word. It sug- 
gests a ship, before the port, just sailing into har- 
bour after the fight with wind and wave. True 
opportunity is always God-given : ' ' Behold I have 
sat before thee an open door, and no man can 
shut it." But doors unentered do not remain 
open, and if God once shuts no man can open, 
and we may knock in vain. Unused opportunity 
never returns: it is forfeited forever. One fact is 
plain: open doors now challenge us to enter every 
land. Before us stands the opportunity of the ages. 
The rapid and sudden multiplication and accumula- 
tion of these openings compel us to wonder and 
adore, for He who only doeth wondrous things is at 
work, and so the iron gates open of their own ac- 
cord before His messengers and heralds. 

A few familiar" facts, which are leaders of a vast 
host, show that God is on the march, and summon- 
ing His Church to follow. Brevity compels classifi- 
cation: we must look at facts only in groups. And 
this age of wonders is but one century beyond that 
of Carey; yet within one hundred years what was 
local and exceptional has become cosmopolitan and 
universal. With the swift touch of God, He has 
opened the world, over which the Cobbler of Hackle- 
ton sighed, to the Gospel which he loved, and given 
to the Church the chance to occupy it for Christ. 

Keeping in mind that our theme is missions, we 
select seven of the remarkable features of our own 
age, all of which are gigantic in character and cos- 
mopolitan in extent, and which constitute in our 
day the seven wonders of the world. 

i. World-wide Exploration. 

If we are to preach the Gospel to every creature 



' THE NE W OPEN DOORS. 29 

we must first go into all the world, and this has not 
been possible to any previous age as it is to ours, for all 
the world has not hitherto been accessible or even 
known. At last the trackless pathways of the ocean 
have been crossed and the penetralia of all the con- 
tinents reached. Land and sea yield up the secrets 
of six thousand years. Navigation and exploration 
have been so thorough that we feel sure that no con- 
tinent is unveiled, nor even one island undiscovered. 
The frozen poles have been forced to unbar the gates 
of their ice castles and the flag of the triumphant ex- 
plorer is unfurled on their crystal battlements. For 
the first time since the world began man knows his 
own habitation and domain. 

All this is full of meaning. When God set Canaan 
before His people, His word was: " Everyplace that 
the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I 
given unto you." That law is general. Every land 
of promise waits for possession, and possession hangs 
on appropriation. The first condition of a world's 
evangelization is its exploration; and, because the 
prows of our ships, ploughing furrows in every sea, 
have made the vast oceans harvest-fields of commerce ; 
because the dauntless explorer has pierced Asiatic 
jungles and African forests, traced the rivers to their 
source, and scaled the mountains to their brow ; be- 
cause the exclusion and seclusion of hermit nations 
has been invaded and the veil rent in twain before 
their closely-guarded fanes and shrines; because the 
public sentiment of mankind forbids locked gates 
and sealed ports, the way is open as never before for 
the Gospel chariot. 

2. World-wide Communication. 

This naturally follows, but not of necessity, for 
doors, wrested or wrenched open by sheer force, are 
closed almost as soon as opened. In this case, how- 
ever, the iron bars of resistance have been broken 
down, and the two-leaved gates have yielded to the 
gentler touch of diplomacy as well as to the harsher 



30 THE NEW ACTS OE THE APOSTLES. 

hand of war, — to the still small voice of commerce as 
well as the louder threat of compulsion. Bonds of 
union have been braided out of mutual treaties, and 
barriers that stood firm for ages have been razed to 
the ground, or fallen like Jericho's walls without a 
blow. 

Facilities for mutual contact and communication 
are so multiplied and marvellous that we scarcely 
recognize our own world. Within the century steam- 
ships have diminished distance, by shortening time 
to less than one-tenth of the period required for ocean 
voyages. Steam carriages cross the continents so 
swiftly that the limited express needs but a contin- 
uous track to run round the globe in three weeks; 
and the black-horse not only climbs the steep moun- 
tain side but bores his way through its rocky heart, 
bridges river chasms, tramps down thickest forests, 
and dares alike Sahara sands and Siberian snows. 
The postal union bears letters and papers from the 
great centres to the remotest outskirts of the earth in 
six weeks; and the telegraph wire and ocean cable 
yoke God's lightning to human thought, flash news 
to the ends of the globe ; and, threading the vast body 
politic with its mysterious system of sensor and 
motor nerves, electricity makes the whole world 
thrill with instantaneous intelligence. 

Now, at last, there are no distant lands, no foreign 
peoples; the whole world is one neighborhood ; those 
who were afar off are brought nigh. Once, to love 
one's neighbour meant to love him who lived next 
door: but now everybody lives next door — and by 
that law we must love the race of man. Commu- 
nication such as this, making possible a contact so 
constant, so sympathetic, so universal, never entered 
into the wildest dreams of the ancients, and to our 
grandfathers would have seemed incredible. Had 
Carey foreseen and foretold what one century has 
made real, his prediction would have ranked him 
among madmen. The tales of the Arabian Nights 



THE NEW OPEN DOORS. 31 

are outdone in extravagance by actual facts. God has, 
through modern science, given to man the magic wand, 
the magic lamp. The genius of nature, with all his 
mighty forces waits to do our bidding, helping us to 
carry out the last command of our Lord. 

3. World-wide Civilization. 

This comprehensive term includes all that builds 
mankind into a compact state or civil society, — intelli- 
gence and industry, enterprise and education, man- 
ners and morals. 

Barbarism is the burglar of history; its deeds of 
wrong, robbery, violence, are of the night, and can- 
not abide the day which dawns when civilization sheds 
its light. In the flush of the morning, blushing for 
shame, it seeks the cover of darkness. Such crimes 
against God and man as infanticide and cannibalism, 
such orgies of lust and blood as the rites of Jugger- 
nath and the Meriah groves; such cruelties as those 
of the torture rack and suttee pyre, are things of the 
past. 

Education is a revolutionist, overturning intellec- 
tual errors and superstitious faith. Cuvier knew too 
much to fear the ghost with horns and hoofs that 
came to his bed and growled out, " I will eat you! " 
He coolly surveyed the sheeted form, and said to him- 
self, "Horns and hoofs! Humph! Graminivorous, 
not carnivorous ! that beast feeds on grass and grain, 
and won't eat me. " And so the comparative anatomist 
went to sleep. Knowledge is power. It destroys 
even where it does not construct. The Hindu cannot 
study astronomy and geology without seeing his 
absurd cosmogony fall in ruins; yet that cosmogony 
is so built into his religious system that the two fall 
together, and he loses faith in the Vedas. The Chinese 
study geography and history, and learn that the Mid- 
dle Kingdom must reconstruct its map of the world 
and its notions of the race of man ; for the Celestial Em- 
pire is but one among many great nations, and Confu- 
cius but one among many great teachers. The Siamese 



32 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

cannot look into medical science without the uproot- 
ing of hoary superstitions; nor the degraded Hotten- 
tot learn common facts about earth, air and water, 
without finding that the witches he fears are not 
human beings nor demons, but miasma and malaria, 
to be exorcised by scientific drainage and sanitary 
conditions. 

Civilization is in our day the forerunner of missions, 
not only in casting up a highway and gathering out 
the stones, but in putting into the hands of Christian 
and Protestant peoples the balance of power. That 
those nations where the most enlightened form of 
Protestant Christianity prevails hold the sceptre that 
sways the world, there is no doubt. Their sover- 
eignty is a conceded fact. The pillars of the world's 
throne are wrought not of brute force but of brain 
force ; the granite columns of character and culture, 
intelligence and integrity. Great Britain and the 
United States, the giant empire of the east and the 
great republic of the west, joined by Prussia, the Pro- 
testant kingdom of the continent of Europe, wield 
jointly an influence which Papal, Pagan and Moslem 
powers, combined, could not resist. Such a fact bears 
the stamp and seal of God's design, and its bearing 
on world-wide missions cannot be measured. 

4. World-wide Assimilation. 

Communication promotes actual contact and com- 
munion. The intercourse of travel and the inter- 
change of trade have begotten new relations and 
suggest anew science which Lieber calls Catallactics — 
the exchange of thoughts. There has come to be a 
new trade in ideas, a commerce of sentiments. 
Hermit nations emerge from their cell and shell. 
From the sunrise kingdom young Japanese pour into 
western channels to absorb the secrets of occidental 
progress, and in their reflow, bear back the new 
ideas they have acquired. China sends her younger 
statesmen to stud) r at the centres of Christendom 
the problems of human progress, and bring back 



THE NE W OPEN DOORS. 33 

their solution. The gods of the Celestial Empire 
actually ask questions of the foreign devils! Con- 
fucius, the Chinese Pope, no longer wears the tiara 
of infallibility. He who shook his own hand now 
shakes ours, respects the head that wears no queue, 
and the feet that are shod with elastic hide instead of 
unbending wood. 

The barriers between peoples are down. Barriers 
of language once more impassable than mountains or 
oceans are silently crumbling. In Yokohama and 
Hong Kong, Cairo and Capetown, Calcutta and Con- 
stantinople, English is spoken: it is becoming the 
court-language of the world. Thousands in India 
and Japan flock to hear men like Julius Seelye and 
Joseph Cook, who use only their own mother 
tongue, and in some of the capitals of the Orient a 
translator or interpreter is becoming so far un- 
necessary. 

Barriers of mutual misunderstanding and suspicion 
are falling. Acquaintance dissipates false impres- 
sions. The "foreign devils" are found to be 
brothers; there is no evil fascination in their eye, 
no curse in their speech, no fatality in their touch. 
Trust takes the place of distrust, and love the place 
of hate. 

The era of universal peace seems to be at hand. 
Men are learning the divine lesson that war is based 
not only on a bad principle, but a bad policy, and 
that O'Connell was not far wrong in stoutly main- 
taining that ' ' no social revolution is worth one drop 
of human blood." Generous forbearance, mutual 
concession, fraternal conference and impartial arbi- 
tration, may settle any controversy without striking 
a blow. War is a serpent, with a crush in its coils, a 
fang in its jaws, and a sting in its tail. Its venom 
heats the blood for generations. France has never 
forgotten nor forgiven Waterloo, and the memory 
of conflicts more remote than the Crimean War, the 
Battle of Plassey, or even the fall of Constantinople, 



34 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

rankles still; for though men die, nations survive. 
Waste of treasure and of life are bad, but waste of 
good feeling and kindly relations is worse. 

God sits at His loom. With many shuttles He 
weaves into one fabric the threads of national life; 
and in the woof and warp the blood-red threads are 
getting scarce. Peaceful compacts guard the rights 
and promote the concord of men. Trade and travel 
bring men together, and they come to know each 
other, and to feel that war must be no more. In 
1884, in Berlin, fourteen nations sent representatives 
to the conference that gave a constitution to the 
Congo Free State. That conference marks perhaps 
the first parliament of man and forecasts the federa- 
tion of the world; for Protestant, Catholic, Greek 
and even Mohammedan communities had delegates 
there. The various congresses and conferences con- 
nected with the Columbian Exposition would have 
been impossible half a century ago; so marked was 
their testimony to the assimilation going on among 
men, that there seems risk of losing sight even of 
some vital distinctions. 

5. World-wide Emancipation. 

This is another marvel of this age. From the fall 
of man until now, human slavery has been the fatal 
foe of the best good of the race; equally bad for 
master and slave. The nightingale will not sing in 
a cage until its eyes are put out. The light of man's 
intelligence must be quenched, the eyes of his intel- 
lect be blinded, before he will submissively wear 
his bonds. Hence the castle of human bondage has 
been built upon the base-blocks of ignorance and 
degradation, and buttressed with oppression and 
compulsion. 

But, even when blinded, Samson was a safe victim 
of tyranny only while his hair was kept shorn ; and 
so, close in the steps of human knowledge and en- 
lightenment, has followed the uprising of man in be- 
half of his fellow-man ; if the slave or serf did not burst 



THE NEW OPEN DOORS. 35 

his own bonds, civilization has broken them for him. 

Great Britain could not further share this crime of 
the age without relapsing toward barbarism, and so 
British intelligence and integrity sounded the tocsin 
that on that memorable first day of August, 1838, 
pealed out liberty in Jamaica. It was not Clarkson 
and Wilberforce, but the "Magna Charta," and the 
Bible, that original charter of human rights, that put 
beneath the walls where human beings were im- 
prisoned, a lever mightier than that of Archimedes. 
Even despotic Russia had to grant at least a nominal 
release to her serfs; and the late four years' conflict in 
America could not end while upon one slave there 
was left an unbroken fetter : those four millions of 
bondmen were God's "contraband of war." 

Who but He has brought it about that not one en- 
lightened nation dares openly to espouse slave traffic 
or maintain slave labour? The market for human 
bodies and souls has long been transferred from 
London and New York to Cairo and Constantinople. 
The voice of mankind is heard saying, " Away with 
fetters ! " and appealing for a parliament of man in 
which there shall be no commons, but all shall sit as 
peers ! 

Emancipation means more than bodily freedom ; it 
brings individualism. Knock from the body its 
shackles and the mind begins to be free. Men 
begin to learn and think, to reflect and reason. 
Speech bursts its bonds and the dumb tongue is loosed. 
Instead of a mass in which individuals are lost, each 
man learns that he is himself a born sovereign rather 
than subject, having a little empire of his own. He 
begins to assert himself and his inalienable right of 
self-rule. He learns the dignity and majesty of mind, 
and that no chain ever forged is strong enough to 
bind a thinker. He learns the grandeur of reason, 
and that truth is resistless like the waves of the sea, 
mighty enough to wreck the strongest bark of false- 
hood and grind to powder the age-long rocks of error. 



36 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

And so to-day we see intelligence, that great agitator, 
striding over the vast steppes of Asia and river high- 
ways of Africa, scattering the seeds of social revolu- 
tion ; and a bloodless warfare of ideas is going on, be- 
fore which strongholds of error and injustice are 
falling. 

When man begins to be free in body and mind he 
learns also the divinity of conscience. God has de- 
creed that no human device of tyranny or torture shall 
suffice to kill or curb man's moral sense; and the 
cell, the rack, the axe, the stake, have proved power- 
less to change that decree. Though blinded and 
made the sport of foes, conscience is still a giant, 
that has but to get hold of the pillars of Dagon's 
temple, to lift them from their foundations and 
bring down to the dust the fabric of organized op- 
pression and regal wrong. Dr. Francis W. Upham 
says: "The conscience is the servant only of God, 
and is not subject to the will of men. Through His 
words, this truth, which reaches to social as well as re- 
ligious institutions, has an indestructible life. If it be 
crucified it will rise again. If buried in the sepulchre 
the stone will be rolled away, and the keepers become 
as dead men." * 

Never before has liberty, both civil and religious, 
reigned among men so widely and wisely. The 
consequences are most significant touching the 
work of missions. For example: In most lands, 
persecution for religious opinion is already done 
away, or if it still survives it is a relic of a barbarous 
age, hiding in the darkness and resorting to the 
secret weapons of the assassin. Enlightened civili- 
zation which shut the gates of the arena also put 
out the fires of the stake. Years since in China, the 
last of the missionary martyrs who died by govern- 
ment decree, was beheaded. Where in Spain the 
dungeons of the Inquisition stood, harvests for God 
are growing out of the ashes of saints. India may 

* St. Matthew's Gospel, by F. W. Upham. 



THE NE W OPEN DOORS. 37 

ostracise, but dare not execute, converts. All this 
forecasts that wider emancipation of the soul of man, 
when such self-conscious sovereign shall learn to be the 
willing subject of the Lord of all, and find his 
highest freedom in the service of a Higher Master. 
That will be the world's year of jubilee! 



THE NEW ERA. 

Two of these seven wonders yet remain to be con- 
sidered, and they serve to inaugurate a new era; for 
one of them puts multiplied facilities, implements, 
instruments or weapons into our hands, and the other 
organizes and mobilizes the forces available for the 
work and war of the ages. 

The first of these is World-wide Preparation. 

In one sense, all that has been said of other won- 
ders implies preparation. But there is one aspect 
of the present condition of the world which implies a 
preparation in itself so peculiar that it needs ex- 
tended reference ; namely, the obvious and providen- 
tial furnishing of facilities exactly adapted for, and 
preparatory to, a world-wide work of evangelization. 
These of themselves serve to introduce a new era. 

There is a divine meaning in the fact that this cen- 
tury, most prolific of missions, has been also most fertile 
in invention, of all ages; the one great epoch of dis- 
covery, not only in political and social develop- 
ments, but in general progress in art and science, 
leaving behind all other centuries. The leading 
statesman of Britain is credited with saying, that 
social advance has moved on such flying feet that in 
the first fifty years of the nineteenth century all 
previous history was outrun ; that even this was sur- 
passed by the next twenty-five, and this again by the 
rate of progress of the next ten. If Mr. Gladstone's 
estimate be correct, one decade of years from 1875 
to 1885 witnessed a forward stride of the race more 
gigantic than all the previous ages of history ! 

This is doubtless no exaggeration. Certainly since 
the world began no such epoch of improvement has 
been known. We have seen huge strides, leaps for- 



THE NE W ERA. 39 

ward which make all past advance seem like a snail's 
pace. During the years of this century the movement 
onward and upward seems, even to those who are 
borne on and up by it, incredible. Since Rome was 
founded the rate of progress has increased at least a 
thousandfold. 

To appreciate this fact, we need to stop long 
enough to study comparative hjstory. This is the 
world's golden age so far as invention and discovery, 
intelligence and material progress, can bring it. 
Measured by achievement each year is a century. 
This is the age of railway and steamship, photograph 
and phonograph, telescope and microscope, spectro- 
scope and spectrum analysis; audiphone and micro- 
phone, petroleum and aniline dyes; steam printing 
press and machine typesetter; typewriter and sew- 
ing machine ; of the discovery of forty new metals, 
and the revolution of chemical science ; of the ocean 
cable and the signal service; of anaesthetics, and a 
score of new sciences and arts, of cheap postage and 
the universal postal union ; of newspapers, magazines 
and popular literature ; of machine work instead of 
handwork; of free schools and universities for the 
people; of giant explosives and gigantic enter- 
prises. Most wonderful of all, this is the age of 
electricity, which already serves man as motor, mes- 
senger and illuminator, is to be applied to forging as 
well as plating metals, and no one knows to how many 
other uses. 

In Robert Mackenzie's graphic sketch of " The 
Nineteenth Century," he calls this feature of our 
times " the great outbreak of human inventiveness 
which left no province of human affairs unvisited." 
With strange and startling suddenness men's eyes 
opened to see how rude and crude were previous 
methods and appliances, and at the same time those 
eyes became endowed with a scientific insight and 
foresight almost superhuman. Man became not only 
scientist but seer; before him limitless paths of possi- 



40 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

ble progress stretched toward a goal so advanced, yet 
so entrancing, that the enchanting vision quickened 
the pace of the whole race, as though men had on the 
mythical "seven-league boots," or the winged san- 
dals of Mercury. 

Wherever a high civilization has shone, mankind has 
felt the thrill of a new passion for investigation and im- 
provement. See the human form become practically 
transparent, as the speculum, stethoscope, laryngo- 
scope, opthalmoscope, microscope, and electric lamp 
guide the physician and surgeon in searching the 
darkest hiding places of disease. Lithotomy gives 
place to lithotrity. Limbs, once amputated, are now 
straightened and strengthened. Since 1 8 1 5 , the treat- 
ment of the insane has undergone a revolution as 
radical and significant as the new era of conservative 
surgery. Machinery now works cotton and wool, 
metal and wood, and new motors do our planing and 
carving, hammering and rolling, sowing, mowing, 
ploughing, reaping, threshing and binding. 

We do not appreciate all this glory of achievement, 
because the wonders of the age dazzle our eyes and 
dull our vision. 

Let us glance once more at the electric telegraph. 
As the earth's rotation on its axis takes a full day, 
points on its surface at antipodes to each other are 
twelve hours apart, reckoning by the sun. But tele- 
graphic signals flash instantaneously, and so far out- 
run the sun's apparent motion that an afternoon mes- 
sage, cabled from London, is read in San Francisco on 
the morning of the same day, and there are points 
further westward where we might have the paradox 
of publishing news of an event twenty-four hours 
before it takes place! This prompts Mackenzie to 
rank the telegraph as the first human invention 
which is obviously final. In the race of human im- 
provement, steam may give place to some yet might- 
ier power, as gas is already superseded by a better 
method of lighting ; but, ' ' no agency for conveying in- 



THE NEW ERA. 41- 

telligence can ever excel that which is instantaneous. 
Here for the first time the human mind has reached 
the utmost limit of its progress."* 

.This unparalleled progress belongs mostly to the 
half century now nearing its close. During fifty years 
the more prominent achievements of the age have 
been reduced to practical form. Almost the entire 
system of railway is the product of this brief period. 
The first sun-picture dates back but sixty years, just 
before the death of Daguerre, from whom it took its 
name, and already we have a score of new applica- 
tions of this principle. These inventions alone link 
the ages together, ushering in a new era of art and 
letters, making the sun himself the artist and sculp- 
tor of the coming era. Already the sun's ray has 
wedded the delicate lens, and given birth to micro- 
scopic photography; so that during the siege of Paris 
pages of the London Times, photographed upon a 
square inch of surface, were borne by carrier pigeons 
to the French capital, there to be magnified and re- 
produced. And it would seem that the sunbeam, 
already used for a pencil and chisel, is about to surpass 
the pigments of the painter, using sensitized paper 
in place of canvas and giving us colour as well as 
form. 

The phonograph, at first a scientific toy, has be- 
come an automatic clerk, recording and repeating a 
message, and has begun to be used for that difficult art, 
the analysis and reproduction of animal sounds and 
utterances; and it makes possible for future genera- 
tions to hear the words and voices of dead orators 
and statesmen, poets, and preachers. It is within 
this half century that the spectroscope has brought 
other orbs near enough to analyze their light and 
learn the substances burning in their photospheres; 
and the invaluable service of the spectroscope in re- 
fining and working metals, shows its possible utility 
in manufacture. 

* The Nineteenth Century, 197. 



42 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

Anaesthetics, which renders medical and surgical 
treatment comparatively painless and so reduces hu- 
man suffering to a minimum, is so recent a discov- 
ery that many yet living remember its well-nigh 
tragic beginning in Edinburgh in 1847. The giant 
explosives — nitroglycerine, dynamite, giant powder, 
etc., have already displaced older and tedious 
methods of clearing the earth's surface of stumps 
and debris, and opening its veins of metal and min- 
eral. Delicate photometers and micrometers, every 
form of monster machinery or delicate mechanism, 
belong to this age ; while science teaches us drainage 
and irrigation, analysis and enrichment of the soil 
and secrets of fertility, turns deserts into gardens, 
and makes every spot available for building a habita- 
tion and earning a livelihood. 

If such be the progress of this half century, 
nothing which men may imagine to do seems 
impossible in the new era just opening, when science 
promises to navigate air as well as sea and build ships 
to master winds as well as waves. Forms of force 
hitherto unknown are now undergoing experiment. 
Secrets, hidden even from this century, are yielding to 
human investigation, and a decade of years may 
witness a revolution greater than that which even in 
our day has turned the world upside down. 

We have laid stress upon this march of human 
improvement, not so much because of the lightning 
pace of this advance, as because of its obvious 
connection with God's providential purpose. It is 
one great sign of the times. It marks this as the 
golden age of opportunity. A world's evangelization 
is not only possible but practicable, with a rapidity 
proportionate to progress in other directions. On the 
pages of history in large letters it is written that the 
periods of most marked progress exactly synchronize 
with the eras of most active missionary effort. Clear 
as the weather signals in the sky, is this glowing 
sign of God's plan in this generation. His mind is 



THE NE W ERA. 43 

the vital spring of man's intellectual life. He is the 
fountain of life, and in His light do we see light. 
It was He who kept a continent veiled for five 
thousand years, rending the veil only when a re- 
formed Church with an unchained Bible was ready 
to enter it and make it the theatre of new gospel 
triumphs. It was He who locked nature's secrets 
within her dark chambers, until a missionary Church 
was aroused to yoke to His chariot the new forces 
and appliances. God is surely speaking. To the 
reverent ear the still small voice is more impressive 
than peals of thunder. "Behold I have set before 
thee an open door." An open door to the nations — 
the world before us; an open door into Nature's 
Arcana, with all her machinery and forces to do our bid- 
ding. Opportunities are matched by facilities equally 
great. Never such a work to be done, never such 
tools to work with. What responsibility, if such 
opportunity be lost and such facilities lie unused ! 

The last of these seven modern wonders is 
world-wide Organization. 

Organization is the watchword of the Age. Never 
before was there such a period of practical union 
among men for all the ends of material, intellectual 
and social improvement. Organization is rapidly 
extending and far-reaching; its triumphs are so mul- 
tiplied and magnificent that they constitute the peril 
of the age, threatening to erect a despotism whose 
iron sceptre shall be resistless and remorseless. 
Already the Giant is on the throne; he lifts his 
finger, and great railway systems are locked in in- 
action; factory wheels stop, ships lie in the docks, 
buildings wait for workmen, mines remain un worked ; 
labor's hundred hands are chained, and action is 
exchanged for petrifaction. Man has created a 
Frankenstein, and knows not how to manage the 
monster. 

While we cannot deny the risks attending organi- 
zation in reckless hands, we must confess both its 



44 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

widespread influence, and its great utility when 
under rational control. What master organizations 
the Church already commands as helpers! The 
Young Men's Christian Association is an example, the 
creation of the last half century, yet a huge banyan, 
whose original root was in British soil, but throwing 
out branches on all sides, across continents and 
oceans into new countries, bending down to take 
root in papal, pagan, moslem and heathen communi- 
ties, until there remains scarce a land in any clime 
where this gigantic and beneficent growth has not 
reached. 

The Young People's Society of Christian En- 
deavour is a yet younger giant, fourteen years old, yet 
in rapidity of growth, daring enterprise, boundless 
influence and burning enthusiasm, leaving already 
behind it any other organization ever known on this 
planet. 

Let these illustrate the genius of the age when 
everybody organizes. Barristers and judges, physi- 
cians and surgeons, artists and artisans, underwriters 
and undertakers, cabmen and cartmen, shoeblacks 
and newsboys — every learned profession and every 
form of work resorts to organization. Were there 
some new trade to-day with only two engaged in it, 
they would begin by drawing up articles of associ- 
ation and forming a co-operative union. 

The reason is plain. Men will dare attempt, and 
can together accomplish, what no one would try to 
do, or could do, alone ; and so they resort to associ- 
ated effort. Great and manifold advantages spring 
from co-operation. When hand joins hand, the weak 
and timid get strength and courage, and momentum 
is imparted to a movement in which individual forces 
are combined and concentrated. Great enterprises 
are possible only to an epoch of organization, and so 
we find business schemes pushing triumphantly to 
the very borders of civilization. 

Compare present history with past records. Before 



THE NE IV ERA. 45 

the time of Christ, isolation was the law. Nations 
had little touch with each other. Universal empires 
were the aggregates of separate states, held together 
by those iron bands which conquest imposes and 
despotism rivets. The unity was that of frost, not 
of fire and fusion. To gather strange peoples under 
one sceptre, or conglomerate empires into one huge 
monarchy, insures no unity. Barriers are not broken 
down, and there is no sympathetic bond or brother- 
hood any more than between Jews and Samaritans. 

How changed the whole aspect of affairs! We 
stand in the blazing focal centre of world-wide enter- 
prise. Discovery sends its heralds to trumpet its 
triumph from rising to setting sun. Invention yokes to 
its car steam and lightning, and flies as on the wings of 
the morning to the uttermost parts of the earth and 
sea. Many run to and fro ; and knowledge is increased. 
Material advance has its million messengers who 
haste to do its bidding. This is the world's Messiah, 
which bids disciples go into all the world and proclaim 
to every creature the good tidings of human 
improvement; and forthwith go the myriad mis- 
sionaries of invention and discovery, needing no 
second summons. The swiftest ships and carriages 
are not fleet enough conveyances for the new apostles 
of science and art. They dare the sea with its tem- 
pest and tornado ; defy forest and jungle, river and 
mountain, plague and famine, hot sands and frozen 
bergs. And all for what? To tell men of the oil-lamp 
and the sewing-machine, the timepiece and the 
parlor organ; to sell ribbons and calicoes, fire-arms 
and rum-jugs, soap and flour, at the earth's ends. 
Trade and traffic, agriculture and manufacture, push 
their conquests by organizing and co-operating; and 
so, in quarters most remote, in inland hamlets as 
well as populous cities, and on islands a half century 
ago unknown, you may find to-day all the appliances 
of enlightened society. 

The theme loudly enforces its own lesson and 



46 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

appeal. To world-wide missions, organization and 
co-operation are essential. Shall the Church be slow 
to learn the lesson of the age? and her Master wait 
for willing feet to run on His errand of grace, His 
mission of mercy and salvation? 

It is true the children of light have already re- 
sorted to organized effort in missions. William 
Carey was the pioneer, not of missions so much as 
of organization; and since his day, this has become 
so distinctive a feature of Church activity that the 
marked success attained since 1792 is traceable to 
associated work. By organization it has already 
come to pass that, although we have not absolutely 
reached every nation, still less every creature, our 
network of missions stretches round the globe and 
covers the earth. 

And yet, in many quarters, how large are the 
meshes and how far apart the cords of that network. 
We have more than one hundred and seventy mis- 
sionary boards and societies, and over one hundred 
and ten missionary organizations controlled by 
women; and these all, nearly three hundred, are the 
outcome of this century past, and most of them of 
the last fifty years. Yet what are even these among 
so many ! We have but begun as yet our work of a 
world's evangelization. 

The old command of Christ echoes down the long 
aisles of the ages, Evangelize ! And the new voice of 
the Providence that speaks through events in this 
missionary era, peals out, Organize ! Lengthen thy 
cords and strengthen thy stakes. A love that is like 
God's, must multiply and extend a thousandfold its 
lines of holy effort, and drive ten thousand times as 
many stakes deep down into the intelligent conviction 
and unselfish affection of Christ's disciples. 

God leaves His Church without excuse or even 
pretext, if missions be not prosecuted as a world-wide 
enterprise. In a sense never thought of when that 
promise was spoken, the Lord is with us — with us, 



THE NEW ERA. 47 

unlocking the gates of hermit nations, battering 
down the wall of China, unsealing the ports of 
Japan and Corea, cleaving a path to the heart of 
Africa — with us to unchain the human mind and re- 
veal the secrets of nature. We may now go into all 
the world, and to every man in his own tongue give 
the word of God. 

There was never such a work for the time, nor 
such a time for the work. The opportunities and 
facilities offered to us make even such a task easy 
and such a load light, turning weights into wings 
and burdens into pinions, to the willing soul. Know- 
ing God's season, the fulness and fitness of His ap- 
pointed time, it is also man's opportune hour, high 
time to awake out of sleep, and the world's critical 
hour of need and want. Dull and dead, indeed, 
must he be who sees not the signs of the times, hears 
not the voices that call and the signals that sound, 
and heeds not the approaching end of the age ! The 
Captain of our Salvation is blowing a blast on His 
bugle — everything echoes His command, Forward! 
Why do we delay? 



Part II. 
THE NEW APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 



THE CALLING OF THE NEW APOSTLES. 

"There were giants in those days" is the terse 
record of the age before the flood. 

Every age has its own giants ; some great in physi- 
cal stature, others mighty in mind, majestic in moral 
character, born to command and control. Even in 
earth's golden ages the giants are rare, for God does 
not make such gifts too common ; but it is the few, 
always, whose words shake the world, whose deeds 
move and mould men, whose lives shape the history 
and destiny of the race. Carlyle calls history but the 
"lengthened shadows " of the world's great men. Is 
it not rather the lingering twilight, prolonging their 
influence, perpetuating their memory even when their 
sun has set, and long lighting up the evening sky? 
Is not the horizon still aflame from many a grand and 
noble life, long since withdrawn from among men? 

The modern missionary era has given birth to a royal 
race of giants ; in fact, so mighty have been these men 
and women, so herculean their labors, so heroic their 
achievements, that they seem rather to have made the 
age than the age them. Some of them were before 
our day, but we trace the path they trod, by their 
gigantic footprints. Others we have seen growing 
to great stature and mounting to thrones of power; 
and still others yet walk among men, and make the 
continents shake beneath their tread. They have 
made the priests of idol fanes tremble with fear; 
and as the God of this world sees them, like their 
Master, working the works and speaking the words of 
God, he knows that his time is short. They are not 
always recognized as great by the world, for their 
greatness is not of this world nor measured by its 
standards. God's giants have not always great heads, 



52 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

but they always have "great hearts." His captains 
are not the princes of this world that come to naught, 
not the wise, mighty, noble in men's eyes; but those 
of great faith, holy love, who walk with God and 
work and war in His name, like those of old whose 
names are graven in that record in Hebrews — that 
"Westminster Abbey" of Old Testament worthies — 
"who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought 
righteousness, obtained promises, out of weakness 
were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to 
flight the armies of the aliens." Let us thank God for 
a type of gianthood to which all believers may both 
aspire and attain ! Not only venerable " fathers, " but 
"young men," in whom the word of God abideth, may 
be strong, and even "little children" may overcome the 
evil one ; because greater is He that is in them than 
he that is in the world. The fable of Hercules is in 
Christian History become fact; for new-born babes 
while yet in the cradle of faith have laid hold of the 
serpent with a giant's grip. 

The study of the missionary age is the story of the 
giants, and let us hope to read so well the lessons of 
their lives as to work wonders in the same Almighty 
name ! 

Every work must wait for workmen, trained to 
fitness in their work. And so this book of the Acts 
and facts of the Apostolic age, reveals the actors, the 
factors in this work for God. The history of primi- 
tive missions gives glimpses of the primitive mis- 
sionaries. 

Because history is the record of facts which demand 
the personal factor, the key of history is biography, 
that most suggestive and instructive of all studies. 
To portray the lives of men is, as Dionysius of Hali- 
carnassus said, to " teach philosophy by examples." 
By the analysis of character we detect the elements 
of success and the causes of failure. Principles and 
precepts are abstract statements of truth, but virtue 
and vice teach best through concrete forms; and 



THE CALLING OF THE NE W APOSTLE S. 53 

hence this, best of all books, is a gallery of portraits, 
where we may study the lives of men, following 
their faith and shunning their faults and follies; a 
gallery where the picture of one perfect life, so lus- 
trous as to disdain even a frame of gold, forever 
challenges imitation. 

Thus, then, our study of the Acts of the Apostles 
leads us to look at the actors who took part in mis- 
sions to a lost world. First there was Peter, to whom 
it was given to open the door of faith to both Jew 
and Gentile, and whose figure stands out boldly in 
the opening scenes of this history. But a more sig- 
nificant point, both critical and pivotal, is reached 
further on, in the formal selection and separation of 
Barnabas and Saul, to a distinct and distinctive mis- 
sionary career and service. 

Let us place prominently before us the opening 
verses of the thirteenth chapter of the Acts : 

NOW THERE WERE IN THE CHURCH THAT WAS AT 

Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Bar- 
nabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and 
Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been 
brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 
As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, 
the Holy Ghost said, separate Me Barnabas and 
Saul for the work whereunto I have called 
them. And when they had fasted and prayed, 
and laid their hands on them, they sent them 
away. So they, being sent forth by the Holy 
Ghost, departed. 

The oversight of the Spirit of God is plainly seen 
in the very words here used. What precision of terms, 
not one useless phrase or needless adjective; no su- 
perfluous suggestion to divert the reader from the 
one lesson God would teach! How majestic the 
march of the narrative ! How rapid and resolute the 
onward movement ! What an impact of impression ! 
A hundred words in the English, standing for but 



54 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

eighty in the terse Greek, put on eternal record one 
of the grandest lessons that God ever taught His 
people about the work of missions. Well may we 
ask for the open ear and the teachable spirit, that we 
may learn. 

All the surroundings comport with the august 
solemnity of the occasion. It is Antioch, the Syrian 
capital, the first gentile centre of Christianity. It is 
a season of worship, with, fasting and prayer. At 
least five of the early prophets and teachers were 
there, for they are mentioned by name. While this 
devout assembly draws near to the secret place where 
God dwells, the Holy Spirit, no doubt in an audible 
voice, through one or more of those prophet teachers, 
says : 

" Separate Me Barnabas and Saul 
For the work whereunto I have called them!" 

That was the signal for the birth hour of foreign 
missions, the true nativity, of which Christ's Ascension 
message of ten years before was the annunciation. 
Every circumstance and detail is precious, for it is a 
presage of things to come, a forerunner to guide the 
Church to the end of the age. God says, "Write the 
vision and make it plain upon the tablets set up along 
the highway of missions, that even by a cursory 
glance he that runneth may read." All true mis- 
sionaries, most of all pioneers in mission work, 
always have been and always will be, those whom 
the Holy Spirit has singularly separated unto His 
work. Seldom, if ever, has the Church led the way 
in setting them apart; in almost if not quite every 
case, the pioneers have led the Church, and have 
found sometimes their main hindrance in the apathy, 
if not antipathy, of those who should have been 
prompt to encourage and help. As at Antioch, it 
was not the Church but the Holy Spirit of God that 
took the lead in selecting and separating the first 
foreign missionaries, so, always, God by His provi- 



THE CALLING OF THE NEW APOSTLES. 55 

dence and His Spirit has called out his servants, and 
the Church has sent away those whom the Spirit had 
already sent forth. 

Thus it came to pass that in this earliest of gen- 
tile Churches, missions to the gentiles had their 
origin. The five prophet-teachers who there min- 
istered before the Lord stand for gentile peoples. 
One a Cyrenian, one from Cyprus, one perhaps from 
Idumea, like Herod, another from the Cilician gates, 
and the last may have been a black man. When the 
Lord called his pioneers of missions, he went out- 
side of the sacred circle of Jewish communities and 
turned from the mother Church to her first-born gen- 
tile daughter. And, even then, had not the Antio- 
chan Church been fasting and praying, they might 
not have heard, or hearing they might not have 
heeded, the voice of God; they might not have sent 
away promptly, if at all, those whom the Spirit sepa- 
rated and called, and so would have forfeited that rich 
blessing that within two years returns to the bosom 
of the Church in that first missionary report ! 

In the New Acts of the Apostles, the Holy Spirit, if 
not as audibly, not less surely, has separated unto Him- 
self and His work His select servants. By unmistak- 
able signs He has set apart His pioneers. But instead 
of a Church praying, fasting, responsive, how often He 
has found a Church prayerless, feasting, secularized, 
corrupt. It is a sad chapter which records the 
separation of the New Apostles. Torpor and 
indifference, spiritual decay and death, ridicule and 
resistance often to the point of persecution, these holy 
men and women have found even within the "body of 
Christ!" Sometimes what should have been a 
sanctuary where the Spirit's voice was clearly heard 
and devoutly heeded, has been a sepulchre, where 
selfishness wound about God's messengers the 
cerements of inertia and would not loose them and 
let them go. 

This lesson, so supremely taught in the inspired 



56 



THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 



narrative, must have urgent emphasis. The one hope 
of missions is the faith that God's Spirit does select 
and separate unto Himself, call out from His Church 
and send forth into His work, His own divinely 
appointed and divinely anointed messengers. 

Such only can be the apostles of missions. For 
what is an apostle, or missionary, but one who is 
sent! Apostle is missionary spelt Greek-wise, 
and missionary is apostle spelt Latin-wise. But 
both words mean one thing: God-sent. Take fast 
hold of this thought, let it not go, for it is the life of 
missions ; and our daily risk is in losing sight of it and 
depending on human argument and appeal and the 
wisdom of man's selection, to furnish the force for the 
field. The new apostles, like the old, must be 
selected, separated, sent forth, by the Spirit. 

Because this lesson is vital to success, let us linger 
yet longer to learn it fully. Two marked passages 
of Scripture stand confronting each other, like two 
pillars that hold up a grand arch : one gives us the 
theory, the other the practice — one the law, the 
other the example of God's methods. We set them 
side by side for comparison: 

" There were in the church that was 
at Antioch certain prophets and 
teachers ; 
" As they ministered to the Lord 

and fasted, 
The Holy Ghost said: 
Separate Me Barnabas and Saul, 
For the work whereunto 
I have called them." 

— Acts, xiii. 1-4. 

The correspondence here shows one hand and de- 
sign in both ; they fit each other, like tenon and mor- 
tise, ball and socket. Our Lord, already foreseeing 
the harvest field waiting for seed and sickle, and the 
fewness of labourers ready to reap, also foretold us 
what was to be done. We are to resort from first to 
last, to Prayer. 

We face a vast field of world-wide need. Where 
is the source of supplies, and who shall furnish 



"Then saith Jesus unto His disci- 
ples: 
The harvest truly is plenteous; 
But the labourers are few: 
Pray \e thekefore the Lord of 

the harvest, 
That He will thrust forth 



37, 38. 



THE CALLING OF THE NEW APOSTLES. 57 

workers? Do you answer, they are to be found in 
the Church, in her colleges and theological halls? 
But who shall choose and make them willing, send 
them forth and give them power? What if the 
Church, like Sarah, be barren of offspring, or having 
sons and daughters, be loath to give them up to God? 
What if those whom the Church may choose, have 
not the self-sacrifice to go, but cling to the easy- 
chair of home comfort and careless indulgence? 

Hear the voice which spake as never man spake : 
' ' Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that 
He will send — thrust forth — labourers into His har- 
vest !" Why are our eyes thus to be fixed on God alone? 
Because He only is the competent Judge of who are 
fit for His work — because He only can make them 
willing, can train them to greater competency and 
higher efficiency, and then thrust them forth into the 
actual field. 

This is the law, and of this law the narrative 
before us is both example and illustration. The 
mother church at Jerusalem was the natural cradle 
of missionaries to the gentiles ; yet God passes her by, 
and at the breast of her eldest gentle daughter suckles 
His first messengers to the heathen. The first two 
missionaries selected are neither of them from Pales- 
tine : one is a Levite from Cyprus, the other a con- 
verted persecutor and blasphemer from Cilicia. 

The Holy Spirit is the one prominent personality 
in their appointment. He spake in an audible voice 
and named the very men — declared, ' ' I have called 
them," and demanded that they should be separated 
unto Himself. All that the Church at Antioch had 
to do was to hear and heed this Voice from above. 
In laying hands upon them and sending them away, 
those disciples took no initiative step, but followed 
where the Spirit went before, ordaining and separat- 
ing those whom He had first ordained and separated. 
Our last glimpse of them as they depart recalls not 
the action of the Church but of the Spirit: "So they 



58 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed." 
Christ's words thus find an exact example. The 
Church prays the Lord of the Harvest, and takes no 
other step until He lays His hand on the very men 
He has chosen. 

Not only this history, but all history, illustrates the 
same law. We cannot raise up zvorkmcn. We do 
not know God's chosen men and women. Our wis- 
dom is folly; our steps will be missteps and mistakes. 
We must resort to prayer. At our peril we seek to 
multiply workmen by human means. God must 
call, select, separate and send forth, those whom 
He ordains — who hear His call and willingly offer 
themselves; those on whom He sets His seal in their 
conscious calling to His work and evident knowledge 
of Him, those who prove their fitness by their passion 
for souls and the fulness of the Spirit — upon such the 
Church may safely lay hands, commissioning them 
with such authority as she can confer. All other 
choice of labourers is premature, officious, unsafe. 

This book of the Acts opens with the election of 
an Apostle to fill out the original number. Peter is 
here conspicuous, and not the Spirit of God. It was 
before the day of Pentecost had set this Divine 
Leader in the foreground of Church history. Of 
Matthias we hear nothing more ; but, later on, God 
in His own marvellous way makes choice of Saul of 
Tarsus, and of his career the rest of the New Testa- 
ment history is full. Hence many reverent students 
of the Word have been constrained to ask whether, in 
the supplying of Judas' place, Peter was not hasty, 
acting in advance of the Spirit's leading; whether 
Matthias be not an example of a man chosen of men 
but not called of the Spirit, owned of men rather 
than recognized of God. 

Whatever may be thought of Peter's course on 
this occasion, no reader can compare the first and the 
thirteenth chapters of the Acts without feeling the 
marked contrast. In one case the leading steps are 



THE CALLING OF THE NEW APOSTLES. 59 

obviously human ; in the other, as obviously super- 
human; and while we must resort to doubtful tradi- 
tion to follow Matthias further, Paul was the most 
active missionary of all history. 

The New Acts of the Apostles adds emphasis to 
this lesson. The Potter sits at His wheel, with the 
clay in His hand. He needs the earthen vessel to 
bear His name to the gentiles, and He moulds it Him- 
self, and sometimes out of material the most un- 
promising, and into shapes most strange. But He 
knows what He wants and can use. The Church has 
her faultless machinery of pulpit and pastorate, 
home-training and theological school. The State 
erects great universities, and sets running the 
golden wheels of scholarly culture, at which preside 
the skilful hands of great educators. But all these 
never yet moulded one apostle or turned out of 
human clay one true man. The shelves of man's 
great pottery stand to-day full of choice wares — pol- 
ished porcelain, hand-painted with oriental designs 
and occidental art — brilliant and costly products of 
education, rated at the highest market-price, grace- 
ful and ornamental, the pride of nineteenth century 
scholarship. Yet, how often the Divine Potter 
passes them all by, and takes instead a rude, crude 
lump of earth from the slime pits, full of flaws and 
defects, and shapes it beneath His own hand as He 
wills. Then He puts it into His furnace, and in fires 
of hot trial bakes it into hardness and firmness, and 
glazes it with an unearthly lustre. Man's fine deli- 
cate wares cannot stand the fire, and crack with 
harsh handling. God's earthenware may be called 
common, but hard blows will not break it, and in 
fierce flames it only takes on a new glory like the 
face of Him whom John saw in apocalyptic vision. 

As God only can choose, so He only can train 
missionary apostles. Human schools often spoil, 
puffing up with pride of learning and worldly wis- 
dom, self-consciousness and carnal ambition. What 



60 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

an irreverent spirit is it, that under the guise of his- 
torical and literary criticism shamelessly and reck- 
lessly treads on holy ground, unawed by the burning 
bush of prophecy or the Shekinah glory of inspired 
history ; that puts the word of God on a level with 
Homer and Hesiod and Herodotus, Sophocles and 
Socrates, Plato and Milton, forgetting that only the 
spiritual man illumined by the Spirit is competent 
to perceive or receive the revelation of the Spirit. 
And so it is that God finds humble, uneducated be- 
lievers more ready to be taught the secrets of His 
word and will than many of the foremost scholars 
who lean to their own understanding and are wise 
in their own eyes. 

Strange indeed are the theological schools wherein 
God trains His workmen. He sent Moses into the 
sheep pastures of Midian for forty years; Elijah into 
the caves of Carmel and Horeb; John the Baptist into 
the wilderness of Judea ; Saul, for three years, into the 
solitudes of Arabia. When that superb Alexandrian 
orator, Apollos, the Apollo of the early Church, 
needed to get beyond the baptism of John and learn 
the way of God more perfectly, God chose two hum- 
ble disciples, tent-makers at Corinth, and one of them 
a woman; and their dwelling became a theological 
school, and Apollos the solitary student. God has 
his own educators, but they would not be chosen of 
man; and His own armoury for His soldiers, but it is 
not stocked with carnal weapons. 

As our studies in the New Acts of the Apostles 
thus compel us to become familiar with the new 
apostles, no fact is more conspicuous than this fact 
and law of a divine selection — all the great pioneers 
and leaders of modern missions have been eminently 
God-appointed and God-anointed. Again we put 
this fact boldly to the front — the Church has not led 
the way in their choice, but they have often, if not 
always, led the Church. Had the Church chosen, they 
would not have been selected, for some of them have 



THE CALLING OF THE NEW APOSTLES. 61 

been a century in advance of their own times, derided 
as fanatics and fools, apostates of the anvil, the plough 
and the loom. God has first trained them in His own 
secret schools, equipped them with weapons forged 
in the trial fires, then called them out from a reluctant 
and hostile body; and not a few of them have lived 
and wrought and died unrecognized as God's great 
ones. 

This lesson can be learned only by examples, and 
it should be well learned, for it bears upon the com- 
ing age of missions. And here, again, we meet in 
our study of this grand theme an embarrassment of 
riches. The names of the consecrated men and 
women who belong to this new age of missions must 
be numbered by hundreds, by thousands. To pay even 
a passing tribute to all, we must use only the most gen- 
eral terms ; and many of the most eminent yet survive, 
and delicacy if not decorum forbids that the story of 
their heroism should now be written ; for there is an 
anointing which befits only burial, and the spices con- 
secrated for embalming the dead are desecrated when 
used for anointing the living. It seems best therefore 
to choose a few representative examples from those 
who in some department have been pioneers and whose 
earthly record is complete. 

The study of missionary biography reveals a true 
and remarkable ' ' apostolic succession. ' ' Missions are 
so vital to Church life that probably should they wholly 
cease the Church itself would die. Never since the 
day of Pentecost has Christ been without witnesses. 
The dark ages were a millennium of death, yet the 
lamp of testimony, burning however faintly, never 
went out. No century or generation has been with- 
out its missionaries; and these lives have so been 
linked together, that, since the first link was forged 
amid the white-heat of Pentecostal fires, this grand 
succession has continued, without one break or mis- 
sing link in the chain. Who can fail to see God's 
hand in all this? At the same time, in different lands, 



62 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

without knowledge of each other, messengers have 
been preparing to work side by side in the great har- 
vest field ; or at different times raised up so as to keep 
up the succession. 



II. 

THE NEW PIONEERS. 

Raimundus Lullius — Pioneer to the Mohammedans. 
1236-1315. 

To find the pioneer missionary to the Moslem 
field, we must go back more than six and a half 
centuries before Keith Falconer fell at Aden, to that 
young noble of Majorca, born in Palma in 1236. He 
was trained as a soldier, and thirty years of his life 
were wasted, not in frivolity only but in sensuality, in 
scandalous excesses. Even his scholarly culture and 
philosophical mind, like those of Augustine before 
him, were only like polished bow and arrow without 
practical purpose or unselfish love to give them ser- 
viceableness. 

But God had for this prodigal son a grander career. 
While writing a song for the siren of lust, he had 
a vision of the Crucified, which left upon his soul 
not only its impress but its image. The Captain of 
the Lord's Host laid hold of the trumpet that hung 
idle and useless on the walls of society, blew a blast 
upon it, waked it to music and turned it to a warrior's 
bugle. The grace that changed the poet of passion 
into a saint, made the saint a servant of Christ and a 
witness to a lost world. Born in 1236, he had from 
his cradle heard the story of the crusades. He 
conceived the noble purpose of beginning a new 
crusade against Saracen infidels, not by force of arms 
to rescue the Saviour's sepulchre from profane hands, 
but by prevailing prayer and preaching of good 
tidings to lead the followers of the false prophet to 
bow before Christ's cross and worship at His empty 
tomb. 



64 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

He suddenly renounced the world and its pleasures, 
divided his estate among kinsmen and friends, took 
the Franciscan garb, and went into solitude to 
prepare for his sacred mission. He studied phil- 
osophy, theology and the ancient tongues. Learning 
Arabic from a slave, he made himself familiar with 
the works of Averroes — the Moorish Aristotle of 
Cordova — and other Moorish writers, and so derived 
the germ of that system of dialectics unfolded in 
his "Ars Magna," whereby he hoped to reform 
science and make converts to Christianity. 

The rest of his life was one long and toilsome pil- 
grimage after the moving pillar. Old habits of sin, 
like Pharaoh's hosts in pursuit of Israel, would have 
drawn him back into bondage, but he dared a Red 
Sea of blood for the sake of following the " vision." 
Like the young Count at Halle, he had covenanted 
with God': " To thee, O Lord God, I offer myself, 
my wife, my children, and all that I possess;" and be- 
ing free from all worldly hindrances he gave himself 
unreservedly to missionary service. Part of his plan 
for bringing unbelievers to accept the truth of Chris- 
tianity was to establish missionary training colleges, 
where young men might be taught Arabic and other 
tongues; for his was no petty ambition; he aspired 
to nothing less than to surround and subjugate the 
whole Moslem territory in Christ's name. There is 
something sublime in this solitary man, moving the 
King of Aragon to establish at Palma a monastery to 
educate monks as missionaries, and spending years in 
fruitless but tireless endeavour to kindle in successive 
popes and kings an enthusiasm like unto his own. 
Then, nothing daunted, crowning all else by going 
himself into Moslem territory to preach Christ — he 
was the first of the missionary martyrs to die for the 
sake of the Dark Continent. 

Those who doubt the romance of missions should 
read the story, more fascinating than any fiction, of 
this, the first and greatest of missionaries to the Mo- 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 65 

hammedans, and deservedly wearing the title of the 
" greatest missionary orator of history," whose work, 
on "Divine Contemplation," ranks with the Confes- 
sions of Augustine, the Meditations of Thomas a 
Kempis, or Bunyan's " Grace Abounding." Follow 
this Spaniard, pleading with kings to found training 
schools for Franciscan missionaries, and with the 
"Vicars of Christ " to decree missionary institutes 
and lead on the new crusade. Then see him in 1292, 
just seven centuries before that famous meeting at 
Kettering when the first Baptist missionary society 
led the way, himself landing in Tunis, daring to go 
defenceless and alone to win converts where prosely- 
tism was a crime, and conversion was apostasy, and 
both punishable with death. 

Scarcely had he broached his design, when he was 
cast into prison and then driven out of the country. 
He returned to Europe for aid, and again unsuccess- 
ful, went back to Africa in 1307, though threatened 
with stoning, and, at Bougiah, employed his ' ' great 
art " in an argument with a learned Mohammedan 
under cover of an inquiry into the truth of Islamism. 
His real design was detected, and he escaped death 
only through his antagonist's intercession. Again 
in prison, he wrote there a defence of Christianity, 
and compelled even his foes to respect the fanatical 
philosopher who risked life itself for the sake of his 
faith and his mission. 

He was a second time deported, and at seventy 
years of age we find him on a tour of the chief 
cities of Europe, like another Peter, the Hermit, 
preaching his crusade and declaring, " God wills it!" 
Once more unsuccessful, with a zeal that no dis- 
couragement could quench or even dampen, in 13 14, 
at seventy-eight years of age, this grand old hero 
once more crossed the Mediterranean to Bougiah, 
and there, in his eightieth year, met death, like the 
first martyr, by stoning. 

Whatever his faults or fanaticism, he had an iron 



66 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

resolution and chivalric ardor seldom equalled, and 
on the scroll of missionary history the name of this 
noble of Palma has a grand record. Dr. George 
Smith says of him; " No church, papal or reformed, 
has produced a missionary so original in plan, so 
ardent and persevering in execution, so varied in 
gifts, so inspired by the love of Christ, as this saint 
of seventy-nine, whom Mohammedans stoned to 
death on the 30th of June, 13 15. In an age of vio- 
lence and faithlessness, he was the apostle of 
heavenly love." Let this motto from his own great 
book be adopted by all his true successors: 

" He who loves not, lives not ; 
He who lives by the Life, cannot die." 



Francis Xavier — Romish Apostle to the Indies. 
1506-1552. 

Five centuries stretch between Lull and Carey, and 
few are the missionary names that history meanwhile 
records, but sufficient to preserve the succession un- 
broken and show that God always has true children 
to become the seed of the Kingdom. 

The Reformation period was not one of missionary 
activity: from the days of the Bohemian martyr to 
those of the Florentine, the reformers did little more 
than purge the Church of false doctrine; but the Re- 
formation moved the Romish Church to aggressive 
measures, and one of the most conspicuous fruits of 
mediaeval missions was Francis Xavier, the apostle 
to the Indies. 

This remarkable and unique man, born in 1506, 
was in youth tainted by association with Protestant 
"heretics" but was, by Ignatius Loyola, founder of 
the Jesuit order, saved from these "deplorable dan- 
gers." At forty-six he died on the Island of San- 
cian, or St. John, off the coast of China, in 1552. 
But what an all-consuming flame burned in his 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 67 

bosom during those last ten years and set the Orient 
aglow ! 

He was misguided, no doubt; but no other life, 
since Paul's, has shown such ardour and fervour, such 
absorbing zeal for the greater glory of God, such . 
self-forgetting, self-denying passion for the souls of 
men, as that of the young Saint of Navarre, whose 
withered relics are still adored in the Church of 
Bom Jesus at Goa. 

It was not until 1542, ten years before his death, 
that the Jesuit missionary landed in Portuguese 
India. Yet what labors abundant crowded that 
decade! For three years he toiled in Southern 
India; for nearly three more, in the Chinese Arch- 
ipelago; and the last four were given to India and 
Japan. 

To the doctrine of free grace, unconsciously im- 
bibed in boyhood, he owed his genuine experience of 
faith in Christ, his strong hold upon Him, and the 
inspiration of an unselfish purpose. To his Papal 
and Jesuit training we trace that admixture of con- 
fidence in outward rites and good works which al- 
loyed and vitiated his otherwise superb service. To 
sprinkle holy water in baptism, to recite the creed 
and a few prayers, limited his methods and measured 
his success. His preaching practically knew noth- 
ing of the purging away of sin by intelligent faith 
in the atoning blood. He said, " feci christiaiios" — 
"I make christians"; and it is not strange if the 
disciples he made often shocked their ''maker" by 
glaring vices and flagrant sins. 

He mastered no oriental language, and was often 
without an interpreter; sometimes, as among the pearl 
fishers of Tuticorin, he was, as he himself felt, but 
an adept in a dumb show, an actor in a pantomime. 
His was the gospel of sacraments and ceremonies, 
preached in mute action, but with what lofty enthu- 
siasm ! To baptize a new-born babe would save a 
soul ; to mumble a few prayers would deliver from 



68 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

purgatory ; and so he went on with wild passion for 
numbers, carrying the counting of converts to the 
last extreme of error and absurdity. It was the last- 
ing warning against that mechanical theory which 
gauges the success of missions by numerical results. 

In one month, in Travancore, he baptized ten thou- 
sand natives, and at the close of his ten years' work 
reckoned his converts by the million. In fact, with 
an ambition that knew no oounds, he planned the 
conversion of the whole Empire of the Rising Sun, 
and wanted only time enough to Christianize the 
Orient. 

Yet, notwithstanding all these drawbacks, this 
Jesuit fanatic puts to shame all who read the story of 
his life, by the utter self-abnegation he exhibited. 
The man who on ship-board could night and day de- 
vote himself to watching over and nursing a crew sick 
with the scurvy, himself bathing their disgusting 
bodies and washing their filthy clothes; who could 
suffer the pangs of hunger, famishing himself to feed 
the starving; who could, unresting, make journeys 
over thousands of miles without care or thought as to 
personal comfort; who could cheerfully forsake the 
paths of indulgence and scholarship for one perpetual 
pilgrimage amid the sickening sights and stifling 
air of oriental heathenism; who could, on God's altar 
lay himself, with his brilliant mind and prospects 
of preferment, with youth, wealth, worldly ambition, 
all tempting him to self-seeking — and know only the 
glory of God — such a man cannot be simply set aside 
as a fool or a fanatic. If his mistaken zeal for Papal 
supremacy caused Japan to seal her- sea-gates to all 
foreign approach for two and a half centuries, on 
the other hand his consecrated earnestness has lit a 
flame of devotion to Christ in hundreds who have 
wept over the story of his heroism. 

Xavier might have chosen any career however illus- 
trious, and success would have had his crown ready. 
When at twenty-four, he was graduated at the college 






THE NE W PIONEERS. 69 

of St. Barbara in Paris as master of philosophy, and 
licensed to lecture upon Aristotle; when he taught 
with applause at the College of Beauvais, and in the 
Sorbonne gained the title of " doctor," he was like a 
new star rising on the firmament of European civiliza- 
tion, and men asked whereunto his fame might not 
reach. But on August 15, 1534, he with five others, 
led by Loyola, took their vows in the chapel of Mont- 
martre, and from that time he never swerved nor 
looked back. After his ordination as priest, he 
went to Bologna, and there in his preaching and visits 
to hospitals and prisons, evinced such apostolic zeal and 
love, that he seemed a combination of Peter and Paul 
and John in one; and, when missionaries were in 
demand for Portuguese settlements in the Indies, he 
was one of the first two selected. Bell in hand, he 
went through the streets of Goa calling upon Christian 
inhabitants to send children and slaves to be taught 
the true faith; went to the coast of Cormorin and 
the island of Ceylon, and many other parts of the 
East, reviving the dead faith of nominal Christians, 
and gathering flourishing congregations which he 
left in the care of his disciples, himself pressing on- 
ward to the regions beyond. Intrepidly he met the 
intrigues and violence of Japanese priests, publicly dis- 
puted with the bonzes, and won many from the 
cultured classes; so that, on returning to Goa in 1551, 
he left three great princes of the empire as con- 
verts and vast numbers of baptized disciples from 
the humbler ranks. He meant to pierce the Chinese 
wall of exclusion; and when the fatal fever laid hold 
upon him he could only look toward the Walled 
Kingdom, and cry, "O rock! rock! when wilt thou 
open to my Master?" During these ten years this 
Romish "apostle" had planted the cross "in fifty-two 
different kingdoms, had preached through nine 
thousand miles of territory, and baptized over one 
million persons." In visions of the night when he 
saw the world.conquered for Christ, he would spring 



70 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

up shouting, " Yet more, O my God, yet more!" 
and his whole life was a commentary on his own 
motto : 

"Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam." 



John Eliot — Apostle to the North American 
Indians, i 604-1690. 

Like Ziegenbalg and Zinzendorf, properly belong- 
ing to the century before Carey, Eliot was one of 
those who formed the mould in which modern mis- 
sions took shape. He was a pioneer of pioneers, 
and history has yet to give him his true niche in her 
Westminster. His period nearly spans the seven- 
teenth century, and three features are conspicuous 
in his personality: first, a pious parentage with its 
rich legacy of character; secondly, his connection 
with the Puritan exile, Thomas Hooker, whom he 
followed to the New World; and thirdly, his absorb- 
ing passion for the souls of the red men. For sixty 
years he filled his sole pastorate at Roxbury, from this 
centre radiating influence over a wider sphere of 
effort. 

A forecast of his work was seen in his early apti- 
tude for language. At nineteen, graduated from 
Cambridge, he had already mastered the original 
languages of the Bible, and shown unusual skill as a 
grammarian and philologist. At thirty-five, the 
colonial leaders chose him to aid in the new version 
of the Psalter, and his "Bay Psalm Book " was the 
first book printed in America. 

He had barely taken up his pastoral staff at Rox- 
bury when his unselfish love was drawn out toward 
the Indians. Through a young Pequot, he got hold 
of their strange tongue, and in 1646, in Chief 
Waban's wigwam preached the first sermon in their 
language ever known on American soil. This 
memorable service in camp, near Brighton, lasted 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 71 

three hours. A new camp-fire was kindled, and the 
spirit of religious inquiry began to burn. Two 
weeks later, a second visit found an old warrior 
weeping lest it should be too late to find God; and a 
fortnight after, Waban himself was found talking to 
his followers of the strange story of the cross, in face 
of fierce opposition from the Indian priests. 

What, two hundred years after him, William Duncan 
did in his " Metlakahtla," Eliot did in his "Nonan- 
tum," five miles west of Boston — building a model 
state for his "praying Indians," who as such became 
known in history, like Cromwell's " Ironsides." The 
Roxbury pastor, aflame with holy passion to civilize 
and Christianize these wild men of the forest, organ- 
ized his converts into a commonwealth, with civil 
courts, social and industrial improvements and re- 
ligious institutions. 

No circle of ten miles diameter could fence in 
such a man. Neponset, Concord, Brookfield, Pawn- 
tucket, felt his power, and from all quarters came 
clamorous appeals for new law-codes, Bible institu- 
tions and Christian teachers. Chiefs and their sons 
became converts, and then leaders ; and, when Eliot's 
visits involved risk to him, the sachem and his brave 
warriors became his escort ; while fearless, if not heed- 
less of danger, alone on horseback, he dared perils 
and bore privations for Christ's sake. 

Not only were snares of death laid for him by hos- 
tile and treacherous chiefs, but his own countrymen, 
not content to withhold aid, pitilessly pelted him 
with the hail of ridicule, or hurled at him the mud- 
clods of aspersion ; they made him the butt of jest as 
a trader in fables, or charged him with selfish greed. 
But God "stepped in and helped." Before the cen- 
tury had reached its noon, his work had won a 
double victory; for it had both conquered the Indian 
and compelled recognition from Britain. Devout 
souls, across the sea, heard the fame of his deeds and 
felt the flame of his zeal ; and so it came to pass that, 



72 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

more than half a century before the " Society for the 
Propagation of the Gospel," a similar organization 
was formed to propagate the gospel in New Eng- 
land, and sent fifty pounds a year to the Noncon- 
formist exile at Roxbury. 

Like Livingstone, Eliot was a missionary general 
and statesman. In 1650, he gathered most of his 
converted Indians into " Natick," a tract of six 
thousand acres on the Charles River, where each 
family had a house-lot, where large buildings were 
erected for church and school, and where distin- 
guished visitors heard Eliot's praying Indians teach 
and preach. The evangelist and statesman now be- 
came also theological professor, training a native 
ministry — that secret of the perpetuity of all mis- 
sion work. He who had toiled for thirty-eight years 
to gather about thirty-six hundred converted Indians 
into fourteen settlements in 1671, left twenty-four 
native preachers behind him when he died in 1690. 

This versatile man was not only preacher and 
pastor, general and statesman, founder of model set- 
tlements and trainer of native evangelists; he was 
also a translator. In 1661 the New Testament, and 
two years later the Old Testament, were published 
in the native tongue; and so that famous Indian 
Bible, which has now not one living reader, was the 
first Bible printed west of the Atlantic. As Bayard 
Taylor said of Humboldt — it is "not a ruin but a 
pyramid," no mere lonely relic of the past for the 
curious antiquarian, but a grand structure from 
whose lofty apex the red man got a glimpse of the 
City of God ; and it is still a pillar of witness, testifying 
to one of God's kings who, against such odds, builded 
this monument to the glory of God! Both as a 
memorial of holy zeal and as a testimony to fine 
scholarship, it merits what Edward Everett said of it, 
that " the history of the Christian Church contains 
no example of resolute, untiring labour superior to 
it." Eliot likewise created for his beloved children 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 73 

of the forest a new Christian literature, translating 
such practical guides as " Baxter's Call," and pre- 
paring catechism and psalter to follow grammar 
and primer. When age and weakness kept him at 
home, and he could not go to his Indians, he besought 
families to send to him their negro servants that he 
might teach them saving truth. 

Southey pronounced John Eliot "one of the most 
extraordinary men of any country ;" and Richard Bax- 
ter said there was ' ' no other man whom he honoured 
above him." We claim for him a certain priority of 
pedigree in this apostolic succession. In a peculiar 
sense he was, on this side the sea, father and founder 
of modern missions ; for it was his life and work that 
moved and moulded David Brainerd, James Brainerd 
Taylor, Jonathan Edwards, Adoniram Judson, as also 
William Carey and others who followed him. Yet 
this stream of holy influence which watered so many 
trees of life, Eliot himself traces to its spring in the 
home of Hooker. "When I came into this blessed 
family," said he, "I saw as never before the power 
of godliness in its lively vigour and efficiency." What 
a lesson in living ! Eliot held for a time the position 
of usher in Hooker's grammar school, and the family 
piety he saw exhibited there led to his conversion and 
consecration. Thus do the streams whose fountains 
are beneath the Temple of God flow softly through 
their hidden channels, and come up to the surface, 
from time to time, in some Siloam basin or Bethesda 
pool. Hooker reappears in Eliot, Eliot in Edwards, 
Edwards in Carey, Carey in Judson, and so on without 
end. 

The last words on John Eliot's lips were "Welcome, 
joy!" and were probably the response of the depart- 
ing soul to the vision of bliss which glorified his dying 
moments. But there is a brief sentence written at 
the end of his Indian grammar which is the key to 
the lock of his life, furnishing at once the interpreta- 
tion of the man and the revelation of his secret. As 



74 THE XEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

I stood, in 1893, by the simple slab of stone that in 
a Boston burial-ground bears his name, that sentence 
seemed a fit motto for all true missions : 

"prayer and pains 

THROUGH FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST 
WILL DO ANYTHING." 



Baron Justinian Ernst Von Welz — Pioneer to 
Dutch Guiana. 

The roots of modern missions reach back to the 
Reformation, and the plant that hangs with such 
abundant fruit is at least four centuries old. But 
much of this growth was below the surface; and a 
distinct and definite line marks the last hundred 
years as the period of organized missionary effort. 

Luther, and his fellow reformers, revived primitive 
apostolic faith, which must be the precursor and 
prepare the way if apostolic life and work are to 
follow. The Church must always be evangelical 
before it is evangelistic. Soon after the reformed 
faith had laid hold upon the convictions of God's 
people, the debt of duty to a lost race began loudly to 
demand payment, and the Reformed Church felt the 
movings of a new impulse to spread the good tidings 
far and wide. But, after a thousand years of inaction, 
of spiritual sloth and sleep, apathy and lethargy 
loose their hold slowly, as the ice-bonds of an arctic 
winter yield to the summer sun. Here and there 
one man was reached and roused, his eyes opening to 
the fact that millions were dying without the gospel ; 
his ears opening to the cry of want and woe which, 
like the moan and sob of waves on the sea-shore, tells 
of storm and wreck. Now and then a man went forth, 
while as yet the Church as a whole seemed locked in 
icy indifference and insensibility. 

Von Welz, who belongs before Spener, Francke 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 75 

and Zinzendorf , is one of the precursors of the coming 
era of missions. About 1664 he issued his invitation 
for a society of Jesus, to promote Christianity and 
the conversion of heathendom; and the same year, 
another manifesto of like purport which, like Carey's 
Inquiry into the Obligations of Christians, a hundred 
years later, turned a powerful search-light upon the 
superficial piety of his day and laid bare its hollowness 
and shallowness. 

There is something grand in this solitary man, 
blowing upon God's silver trumpet a solemn alarm 
to set in motion the camps. No such voice had be- 
fore been heard in the Reformed Church, but it 
awakened no sympathetic responsive echo. Those 
"light words," which are the "Devil's keenest 
swords," pierced him again and again. Unsparing 
ridicule and contemptuous opposition swept over 
him, but only to fix deeper the roots of his holy pur- 
pose, as storms fasten the cedars to the rock-sides of 
Lebanon. Another manifesto still more searching 
succeeded: an appeal to court preachers and learned 
professors to establish a college for training mission- 
aries. Von Welz joined to the capacity of a states- 
man and organizer, the enthusiasm of a zealot, the 
persistency of a born leader, and the courage of a 
warrior. Because he would not keep silence but 
kept blowing his bugle blast in men's ears, summon- 
ing the sleeping Church to propagate the faith among 
unbelieving peoples, he was laughed at as a dreamer 
and fanatic, and denounced as a hypocrite, heretic 
and blasphemer. Dr. Ursinus, severer in rebuke 
than Ryland was with Carey, prayed, concerning the 
proposed Jesus-Association, "protect us from it, 
dear Lord God," as though the proposed missionary 
society and training college were to be classed with 
those malicious and seditious schemes from which 
the litany implores, " Good Lord, deliver us." The 
famous doctor of Ratisbon regarded the heathen as 
dogs to whom we are not to give that which is holy, 



70 THE NEW ACTS OE THE APOSTLES. 

or swine that will wallow in the mire and trample 
under foot the pearls of the gospel, and he would 
have given them over to work all uncleanness with 
greediness. 

When the proposal to send out artisans and lay- 
men to evangelize the heathen met, like other ap- 
peals, only rebuff and ridicule, that heroic soul that 
could not move others to action found relief in self- 
offering. Ordained an apostle to the gentiles by 
Breckling, a poor priest in Holland, Von Welz, like 
Zinzendorf after him, left behind his baronetcy and 
his baronial estate, and himself became the humble 
messenger to Dutch Guiana, where he laid down his 
life. Like other seers of God and prophets of hu- 
manity, he saw farther than his contemporaries; and, 
had the bold originality of his missionary schemes 
found earnest co-operation, organized missions might 
have found in the soil of Protestant Germany their 
germination at least a hundred years before Carey 
and his humble twelve sat down in widow Wallis' 
parlor at Kettering. 

Von Welz was another of the examples of which 
history is full, of great and extraordinary minds en- 
dowed with a consciousness of strength, impelled by 
a Divine impulse which is their truest and best ad- 
viser. There is a "perspicacity of eye " which is the 
direct effect of that mystic anointing with God's own 
eye salve ; and God's born prophets must not be diso- 
bedient to the heavenly vision, though others see not 
the form and hear not the voice. Baron Von Welz 
could say of his manifestos what Thucydides said of 
his histories, " I give these to the public as an ever- 
lasting possession, and not as a contentious instru- 
ment of temporary applause." 

Such men are God's agitators, sent to marshal 
the conscience of the Church, to mould the law of its 
life and the methods of its work in conformity with 
His word and will. They are educators of the race, 
but too often they find dull pupils, that, ever learn- 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 77 

ing, are never able to come to the full knowledge of 
the truth. To us it now seems incredible that the 
Austrian baron, who would found a new Jesus so- 
ciety — not a Jesuit order — to rally to itself those 
whom the love of Jesus constrained to bear His 
gospel to the lost, and who offered the capital of 
30,000 thalers as a fund whose interest should sup- 
port the missionaries in training, — should be met not 
only by the sneers of the worldly, but by the unspar- 
ing condemnation of leading Churchmen ; that John 
Heinrich Ursinus, superintendent of Ratisbon, other- 
wise an excellent man, could so violently oppose 
a scheme which took all its inspiration from the New 
Testament! Yet, in so doing, he represented the 
general attitude of the Lutheran Church of his day. 

The zeal of this first missionary martyr within the 
Lutheran Church, who found a grave at Surinam, 
may have flamed with excess of enthusiasm, but 
we cannot, with Plitt, dismiss him asa " missionary 
fanatic." His motives were too unselfish, his purpose 
too lofty, his self-sacrifice too sublime, his appeals 
too scriptural and too spiritual, to be thus classed 
with the outcome of a half-disordered brain. How 
true it is that the madness of one generation is the 
wisdom of the next, and the fanaticism of one decade 
becomes the heroism of the next ! The men that are 
martyrs to the hatred and violence of one age, are 
the saints that a succeeding age canonizes. Would 
that we might not slay God's prophets, leaving a 
wiser generation to pay its too tardy tribute at their 
sepulchres ! 

Bartholomew Ziegenbalg — Pioneer to India. 
1683-1719. 

If we seek the pioneer in the East Indies, we must 
go back beyond Duff and Carey to those devoted 
pietists of Denmark, Bartholomew Ziegenbalg and 
Henry Pliitschau, who, in 1706, just one hundred 



78 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

years before Alexander Duff was born, landed at 
Tranquebar. 

Ziegenbalg, born in Pulsnitz, Upper Lusatia, in 
1683, and dying in India, of cholera, at thirty-six, 
crowded into twelve years of missionary life such 
abundant service as few of the most devoted men 
have ever offered to the Master on the altar of mis- 
sions. Trained at Halle in theology and biblical 
literature, and ordained at Copenhagen in 1705, he 
arrived at Tranquebar after eight months at sea, 
only to be imprisoned by the Danish authorities. 
Unknown to him and his fellow-student, by the 
same vessel on which they sailed, secret instructions 
were despatched by the Danish East India Com- 
pany, authorizing the governor at Tranquebar to 
block their way by every means and crush their mis- 
sion in the bud. And the governor did his best to 
obey instructions. 

These first Protestant missionaries that ever trod 
the soil of India, had gone over the wide seas to win 
a new empire for Christ, and as they stood, on the 
night after they landed, with no shelter but the sky 
and no companions but the stars, left by the 
governor to shift for themselves, a pathetic interest 
invests their loneliness. What a task before them, 
and what a welcome to their new field ! One of the 
governor's suite took pity upon them and they found 
for the first few days a place of sojourn ; then they 
were allowed to occupy a house upon the wall, close 
by the heathen quarters; and, all undaunted by diffi- 
culties, Ziegenbalg, six days after his landing, was 
busy at Tamil, though he had neither dictionary, 
grammar nor alphabet. He sat down with native 
children, writing with fingers on the sand to learn 
the strange language in which were locked up the 
secrets of access to the people and their religion. 

By almost unparalleled industry and application, he 
could in eight months talk in Tamil. All day long 
busied with reading and writing, translating and re- 



THE JVE IV PIONEERS. 79 

citing, he managed not only to master the intricate 
construction of the language, but to catch the inflec- 
tion and tone in pronunciation, so that in 1709, 
Tamil was to him as his native German. He had 
now, however, made only a start, and applied him- 
self to the making of a grammar and two lexicons, 
which together contained nearly 60,000 words. Be- 
fore he had been in India two years, the translation 
of the New Testament was in progress, and within a 
third year completed. Then, when serious illness 
hindered other work, he began the Old Testament. 

Here was a young missionary of twenty-six, preach- 
ing in Tamil, and giving the people the New Testa- 
ment in their own tongue. On the ship sailing 
from Copenhagen he had learned the broken Portu- 
guese dialect that all along the coast was used by the 
half-breeds, and he turned this to good use, opening a 
school and preaching service for such as could be 
reached by this language; and the first fruits of his 
labour were five converted slaves of Danish masters 
within the first year after his arrival, and, four 
months later, nine adult Hindus. 

Against the persistent opposition of the governor, 
and the failure of funds to carry on the mission, in 
1708, Ziegenbalg made his pioneer preaching tour 
into the kingdom of Tanjore, and at Negapalam began 
his friendly conferences with the Brahmans. He 
not only first gave India a Tamil New Testament 
and vernacular dictionaries, but he set up the first 
press. 

Left alone by Pliitschau's return, he was himself 
driven home by sickness. In 17 15 he suddenly ap- 
peared in Denmark; then hurried into Germany to 
Francke and Halle, preaching to crowds that no 
church could hold; then with his newly wedded wife, 
hurrying through Holland to London, he went back 
to Tranquebar, where he found the governor who 
had tyrannically fought him displaced by a warm 
friend of missions. 



80 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

For two years more, as though he felt that death 
was approaching, with almost reckless enthusiasm he 
sped toward his goal — the winning of India for Christ. 
At Christmastide, 1 718, he preached, but a week later 
his voice was so feeble that he could scarce be heard, 
and he never again spoke in public. On the last 
Sunday his bed was his pulpit, and from his pillow 
he exhorted his native converts to hold fast the faith. 
Soon after morning prayer, February 23, 17 19, the 
chill of death was upon him. 

Two scenes, one at the beginning, the other at the 
end of this singularly devoted life, should be placed 
side by side for the lessons they teach. When his 
mother died she left to her children as her last legacy, 
"a great treasure," which she bade them seek in the 
Bible. "There," said she, "you will find it; there 
is not a page that I have not wet with my tears." 

Ziegenbalg was very young at the time, but he 
never forgot the impression of those words; and 
when he went to India, his mother's legacy to him 
was the treasure he sought to bequeath to his con- 
verts. And when about himself to depart, so in- 
tense was the glory that smote him, that he sud- 
denly put his hands to his eyes, exclaiming, "How 
is it so bright, as if the sun shone full in my face!" 
Soon after, he asked that his favourite hymn might be 
sung, "Jesus, meine zuversicht" (my confidence), and 
on the wings of sacred song he took his flight, leaving 
behind over three hundred and fifty converts, cate- 
chumens and pupils, a missionary seminary and a 
Tamil lexicon, but best of all the Tamil Bible. 

When, a hundred and thirty-four years later, Alex- 
ander Duff stood in the pulpit where Ziegenbalg, as 
well as Grundler and Schwartz, so often told of 
Jesus, his heart swelled with emotion. To him the Dan- 
ish missionary was, among all that had gone to India, 
not only great, but "first, inferior to none, scarcely 
second to any that followed him." On the sides of a 
plain altar lay the dust of Ziegenbalg and Grundler, 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 81 

those two men of such ' ' brief but brilliant and im- 
mortal careers in the mighty work of Indian evangeli- 
zation," whose " lofty and indomitable spirit breathed 
the most fervid piety."* 

As truly as Ignatius or Huss, Ziegenbalg was a 
martyr of Christ. But, as Shelley's heart was found 
unconsumed in the ashes of his pyre on Italy's shore, 
the heart of such a pioneer is still the inspiration of 
all later heroism. Whatever property Ziegenbalg 
had in himself was made over to God, unencumbered 
with mortgages ; to him self-denial was a joy, and sacri- 
fice was amply compensated by service. Like the Maid 
of Orleans, he would ' ' rather have died than do any- 
thing which was known to be contrary to the will of 
God;" and, like Richard Knill, his contribution to 
missions was the offering of himself. 

For courageous faith and patient faithfulness, for 
keen insight and practical wisdom, for untiring indus- 
try and deep devotion, few missionaries anywhere 
have equalled Bartholomew Ziegenbalg ; and we can- 
not but see him repeated and reproduced in that most 
conspicuous figure in India during the eighteenth cen- 
tury, Christian Frederick Schwartz, who like him was 
a German, a student and translator in Tamil, ordained 
at Copenhagen, and who sailed to Tranquebar. These 
two men, though one life measured but half the other's 
in years, wielded a power in India that can be meas- 
ured only at the last day. 

Hans Egede — The Apostle of Greenland. 
1686-1758. 

We turn now toward that repellant clime, the frozen 
pole, to find another example of one whom God 
called and thrust forth to unfurl the flag of the cross 
upon the ice-castles of the north. 

It was early in the last century that a humble Dane 
who was the village pastor in Vaagen, off the 
Norway coast, in the Lifoden Isles, felt oppressed 

* Smith's Short History. 



82 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

with the woe and want of the heathen a thousand 
miles away toward the pole; and, like Nehemiah at 
the court of Esther, his face betrayed his sorrow of 
heart, so that not only his wife but his parishioners 
sought a reason for his troubled looks. His was a 
secret that could not be kept. By a seeming 
accident Hans Egede had read of the discovery of 
Greenland by Norwegian sailors about the close of 
the tenth century; of the successful preaching of the 
gospel among the rude people of those climes; of the 
subsequent ice blockade, and the black pest which, in 
the fifteenth century, broke off communication, so 
that for nearly three centuries these poor heathen 
had been left to relapse into darkness without any 
man who cared for their souls. 

Hans Egede could not say why he should feel 
such concern for those toward whom no one else 
seemed to be drawn ; but he could rest neither day 
nor night for thinking of them; and he ventured 
at last to open his heart to his dear "Elizabeth." 
But, like many another, she found the home-work a 
sufficient apology for staying at Vaagen, and could 
neither sympathize with nor understand this yearning 
for souls three hundred leagues away. Wife and 
children and parish were to her field enough for 
apostolic labors and denials, and she begged Hans 
to dismiss his anxieties, her earnest pleading 
waxing at last into virtuous indignation at the 
mistaken zeal that would turn him from duties close 
at hand to go on a vague mission to the ends of 
earth. 

God was dealing with her husband, and he could 
only answer that the Lord would have him do some- 
thing for Greenland: of that he was sure. He was 
persuaded to wait, and four years passed away. 
Greenland seemed to find another ice blockade in 
Egede's heart. Then came three signs from God; 
two bishops wrote letters, respectively from Dron- 
theim and Bergen, both urging Egede to take up this 



the tf£ w Pioneers. 83 

mission ; and a rich merchant made offer of transpor- 
tation, and help in founding a colony. Egede felt that 
God was both thrusting him forth and opening the 
door; but his reluctant wife was now joined by a 
sorrowing church, and again Hans Egede consented 
to wait, but solemnly added: "Twice God has 
called me — if again He calls, I go." 

About a year after, the third call came; and this 
time it came through his wife, Elizabeth. Thorns 
had been planted in the household nest, and she was 
restless and unhappy. Some hostile elements in the 
parish made her home-life bitter, and Vaagen lost its 
charm. God was stirring up the nestling and pre- 
paring his eaglet for a flight. Half a night was spent 
on her knees. Then she asked little Paul, her 
youngest child, whether she should go with his father 
to the poor heathen across the sea; and out of the 
mouth of a babe and suckling God spoke once more, 
for he said, ' ' Yes, let us go ; and I will tell them of 
Jesus and teach them to say, ' Our Father!' " And 
so, after six years of waiting and watching for God's 
time to come, the wife, too, felt God thrusting her 
forth, and now her faith went beyond her husband's. 

Early in 1 7 2 1 the ship was ready to set sail : and 
when Hans Egede had his foot on the plank to go on 
board, some sailors warned him that death awaited him 
if he ventured to those inhospitable shores. They 
said they had come from Greenland and barely 
escaped being eaten by those cannibals who dwelt 
there and who had eaten some of their party. Was 
this God's voice of warning? The Vaagen pastor 
took his four children by the hand and turned back. 
But Elizabeth now led the way, crying, "O ye of 
little faith !" and boldly crossed the plank. To her 
this was no sign that they were to stay at home ; it 
was a test, from God, of their worthiness to under- 
take for Him; and taking her seat in the boat she 
bade her family follow. 

They set sail, and, while the husband and children 



84 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

wept, her face shone as if it were the face of an angel. 
They undertook as pioneers to preach the gospel in 
that foreign land, and with some forty settlers 
founded the Christian colony of which God-thaab, 
(God's haven) is the capital. 

The story of Egede is one of severe hardship, but 
it is so full of startling marvels that Christlieb has 
referred to it as one of the many instances which 
modern missions furnish of that supernatural work- 
ing which seems to reproduce the apostolic age. 
Those stupid dwarfs, like the icebergs and snowfields 
about them, seemed frozen into insensibility; and, 
feeling that only some sure sign of Divine power 
could melt their stolid apathy, Egede boldy asked 
for the gift of healing, and was permitted in scores 
of cases to exercise it, while his wife received the 
gift of prophecy, predicting in the crisis of famine 
the very day and hour when a ship should come bear- 
ing supplies! 

When Christian VI. disbanded the settlement on 
account of the severe hardships and bitter disappoint- 
ment of the half famished colonists, the work of 
Egede seemed to have come to naught. But by a 
very marvellous leading of God, where the mission of 
Egede ended, Moravian missions began. For, in 
1 73 1, at the coronation of Frederick's successor to the 
throne, the young Count Zinzendorf represented the 
Saxon court ; and meeting two Eskimo converts of 
Egede, learned that the mission work was to be aban- 
doned. This was one of the main influences that, in the 
next year, moved the young count, and through him 
the Brotherhood, to send to the West Indies Dober 
and Nitschmann, and to organize a mission work 
that should know no limits but the wide world. 

Count Von Zinzendorf— The Moravian Apostle. 
1700-1760. 

To Philip James Spener, head of this pietist school, 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 85 

and to Prancke, his greater disciple, this Moravian 
bishop's spiritual lineage must be traced. His 
grandfather, an Austrian noble, had for the Lord's 
sake given up all his estates, and that heroic example 
of self-denial his grandmother and aunt had empha- 
sized by such holy training, that the lad, at four 
years, formally covenanted with his " dear Saviour," 
"Be thou Mine and I will be Thine." He so longed 
for communion with his unseen Lord, that in child- 
ish simplicity he was wont to write letters to Jesus, 
in which he laid bare his heart, and, confident that He 
would get and read them, tossed them from the 
castle window. 

When but ten years old, the pupil of Francke at 
Halle, we find him forming prayer circles, and the 
Order of the Grain of Mustard-seed, whose members 
were to sow in other hearts the seed of the Kingdom. 
Though drawn to classic pursuits and tempted by 
rank and riches, his life-motto was that of Tholuck 
after him: "I have one passion; it is He and He 
alone:" and it was this, that amid the gaieties of 
Paris and the snares of Dresden, held him fast to 
Christ. To this, even the new passion of love was at 
once brought into subjection; he would marry only 
in the Lord, and his unique covenant of wedlock in- 
volved a mutual renunciation of rank, a consecration* 
of wealth, and a dedication of self to the Lord and 
His work. From this marriage-altar two pilgrims 
went forth, as from the paschal supper in Egypt, 
with loins girt and staff in hand, for a new Exodus. 

On their wedding-tour, they found the Moravian 
exiles taking refuge at Berthelsdorf, and welcomed 
them to build there, Herrnhut; and the seal of the 
Unitas Fratrum became the count's true coat of 
arms — a lamb on a crimson ground with the cross of 
resurrection, and a banner of triumph, with the 
motto: "Vicit agnus noster, eum sequamur." — 
"Our Lamb has won; let us follow Him." Zinzen- 
dorf began with the resolve that wherever the Lord 



86 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

had need of him he would find his native land ; and 
a little later could say that he would rather be hated 
for Christ's sake than be loved for his own. 

His history merges into that of the Moravian 
Brotherhood, which at the hundred and fiftieth 
anniversary of its mission work, in 1882, had sent 
forth 2,170 missionaries, planted 113 stations, 211 
schools, and 89 Sunday schools, with a total of 
23,000 pupils, and expended 52,000 pounds yearly, at 
a cost of only three per cent, for administration. 

The Unitas Fratrum is the pioneer church in mis- 
sions. This brotherhood is in the direct line of 
descent from the Bohemian martyr, Huss, and his 
contemporary Chelczicky. In 1467, a few Bohemi- 
ans formed themselves into an apostolic Church. 
Tradition traces the ordination of their first bishop 
to a Waldensian priest; and so the Moravians are 
linked to the martyrs both of Bohemia and of the 
Vaudois valleys. Their doctrine took form both in 
the mould of Luther and of Calvin, as became a 
Church that was to be known alike for its vigorous 
faith and its spirit of reform. Persecution wrought 
the red cross into the Moravian robe, and in 1722, 
Christian David, the carpenter, led a mere band of 
eleven exiles across the frontier into Saxony. 

How God teaches us not to despise the day of 
small things ! They remind us of the eleven Apostles at 
Jerusalem and of the twelve Baptists at Kettering. 
Five years after they settled on the site of Herrnhut, 
they were but three hundred strong, with Zinzendorf 
practically at their head; and August 13, 1727, is still 
kept as the spiritual birthday of the renewed Church. 
Ten years later the count became their bishop, and 
for twenty-three years, until his death in 1760, their 
" advocate." To his leadership is due more than hu- 
man annals record. Each morning gives a new text 
as a watchword; and certain members of the band 
keep up the hourly prayer, as vestals guarded the 
sacred fires and lamps. Death is a joyous home-going 
to be announced with song and trumpet. 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 87 

The Brethren caught the spirit of their leader ; the 
" seed corn " at Halle has grown into the "Diaspora " 
at Herrnhut, whose principle, as its name implies, is 
Dispersion. God has given to the Moravians to 
prove the power of the spirit of missions, and to 
make real what too many even yet treat as an im- 
practicable ideal. The Diaspora is one hundred and 
sixty-seven years old, has over sixty central stations, 
numbers over seventy thousand members, and stands 
for the home mission. To contact with its working 
force the Wesleys and Whitefield owed their kindling 
of evangelistic zeal. 

But it is the foreign missions of the Herrnhut 
band that furnish us our most pertinent example. 
When in 1732 the settlement was but ten years old 
and numbered but six hundred, Dober sailed for the 
West Indies; and, soon after, the United Brethren 
were planting the cross in Greenland and Lapland, 
the Americas and Africa. Less than one hundred 
and sixty years later, there were one hundred and 
thirty-three stations and filials ; three hundred and 
forty-three missionaries and nearly fivefold as many 
native helpers; thirty thousand communicants, and 
nearly twice as many more baptized adults; and two 
hundred and thirty-two schools with twenty thousand 
pupils. 

All Christendom may well stop to gaze at the unique 
spectacle of a Church, having in its missions almost 
three times as many communicants and baptized 
adults as in the home Church of its three provinces : 
British, German and American; a Church, which, 
while Protestant Churches at large send one member 
out of five thousand to the foreign field, sends one 
out of ninety-two! A like ratio throughout the 
Churches generally would put in the regions beyond 
three hundred and eighty thousand Protestant mis- 
sionaries ! 

Let us fix in mind the leading features of this fore- 
most missionary Church. 



88 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

First, its Evangelistic Basis. It holds itself in 
debt to a lost world, and in trust with the gospel: as 
trustees to discharge the obligation of debtors. All 
are trained to service, to work for the common good 
of the Brotherhood and the redemption of the race; 
to have few wants, frugal habits and readiness for 
self-sacrifice. Missions are thus not the exception 
but the law. Prompt obedience to any clear leading 
of God is the base-block of daily life. Zinzendorf 
asked a brother if he would go to Greenland. " Cer- 
tainly." "When?" "To-morrow." Any Church 
destitute of the spirit of missions is considered dead, 
and every disciple without service, an apostate. 

Again, the law of preference. The worst and 
most hopeless fields have the first claim. Mary Lyon 
reflected their unselfishness when she advised her 
students at Holyoke to be ready to go where no one 
else would, or as a poor negro slave phrased it, "where 
dere is most debbil." It was Moravian blood that 
impelled William Augustine Johnson to choose Sierra 
Leone, because it was the worst field known ; and so 
Hans Egede became an exile in the land of eternal 
snow, Dober offered to sell himself into slavery to 
reach the slaves of St. Thomas, and later martyrs 
have scaled Thibet's mountain walls to unfurl the flag 
of the cross above the shrine of the Grand Lama. 

Again, zeal for Divine approval. Wordly ambi- 
tion is ruled out of the Moravian life. Evangelism, not 
proselytism, is their principle. Increase of numbers 
is no object ; and hence there is no counting of converts 
or overlooking of quality in quantity. Of denomi- 
national growth they are not jealous, and rather pre- 
fer not to extend their borders. To them alone belongs 
the rare distinction of a litany with this unique peti- 
tion: 

" From the unhappy desire of being great, 

Good Lord, deliver us ! " 

Holy living, ceaseless praying, cheerful giving, 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 89 

constitute their conception of discipleship, and the 
open secret of that Brotherhood, which, fewest in 
numbers and poorest in resources, leads the van of 
missions. 



Christian Friederich Schwartz — Founder of the 
Native Christian Church in India. 1726-1798. 

Here was another of Germany's contributions to 
the mission field. When at the University of Halle, 
he studied Tamil that he might superintend the issue 
of a Bible in that tongue ; and, though this purpose 
was not carried into effect, he was unconsciously fit- 
ting for a singularly useful work at the centre of 
oriental missions. Francke, knowing that he had 
learned Tamil, urged him to undertake a mission to 
India; and in January, 1750, the meridian year of the 
eighteenth century, he set sail, unaccompanied even 
by a wife, that he might be the more single-eyed in his 
devotion to His Master's work. 

He was successively identified with Tranquebar, 
Trichinopoly and Tanjore. But Schwartz left his track 
over all India, and he can be traced in footprints of 
light after one hundred and fifty years. Such was his 
influence as a man of God that both friends and foes 
alike looked upon him with an awe akin to worship. 
He was a day's man betwixt contending parties, a 
whole court of arbitration in himself. He acted as 
embassy to treat with Hyder Ali and saved Tanjore. 
The cruel and vindictive despot gave orders : ' ' Let 
the venerable Father Schwartz pass unmolested!" 
When, after nearly half a century of work in India, 
he was not for God took him, he was mourned by a 
whole nation. The prince of Tanjore wept over his 
bier and the Rajah himself built him a monument. 

Bishop Heber described him as "one of the most 
active, fearless and successful missionaries who have 
appeared since the Apostles," and it is a curious exam- 



90 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

pie of apostolic succession in missions that William 
Carey had been five years in Serampore, when 
Schwartz was translated to a higher sphere. 

"Father Schwartz" wielded a sceptre in India 
more potent than even Zeigenbalg, who landed at 
Tranquebar twenty years before Schwartz was born. 
It may be worth while to notice the steps by which 
such a career was prepared. Born in 1726, he was 
left motherless while yet an infant. But, as his 
mother died, she gave her boy into the hands of her 
Lutheran pastor and weeping husband, with this 
solemn charge, which recalls the story of little 
Samuel: " For this child I prayed, and the Lord hath 
given me my petition which I asked of Him. There- 
fore, also, have I lent him to the Lord. So long as 
he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord. Take him, 
and foster in him any aptitude which he may show 
for the Christian ministry. This is my last legacy." 

The dying commission of this modern Hannah was 
fulfilled. His father trained young Schwartz to sim- 
ple, self-denying habits; sent him at eight years of 
age to the grammar school at Sonnenberg, where he 
got a good start in Latin, Greek and Hebrew; then 
eight years later he transferred him to a higher 
school at Custrin. There unhappily, his youthful 
passions, not yet under the discipline of moral re- 
straint, led him into dissipation, and it seemed as 
though his mother's "last legacy" would not prove 
also a prophecy. 

But God remembered his covenant. The lad was 
kept back from presumptuous sins. He came under 
Francke's influence, became interested in his orphan 
houses, and studied at the university where Francke 
taught. That marvellous man drew him with cords of 
love, led him to a true consecration, and introduced 
him to Schultze who had been twenty years in India, 
and was then at Halle to print the Tamil Bible. 
Under the contagious enthusiasm of this saintly 
missionary, the seed planted in the boy's heart by 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 91 

his mother found its growth in the man's life and 
character. 

But its full ripeness was reserved for the oriental 
clime. On the voyage to India, his remarkable lin- 
guistic powers were again brought into play, for he so 
acquired the English tongue as to be able to preach in 
that language on his arrival at Tranquebar. Within 
four months, he preached with ease in the native 
dialect; then mastered Persian, and so had access to 
the greatest of Mohammedan princes; by his ac- 
quaintance with Hindustani, he became invaluable 
in the service of the British Government; and fur- 
ther acquired the Hindu- Portuguese, that he might 
reach the mixed race descended from this double 
ancestry. 

His passion to save men made all labour and sacrifice 
seem little. He studied the habits, modes of thought 
and idioms of speech, and even the mazes of mythology, 
which are the paths to the hearts of the Hindus. 
But above all he set himself so to live in God as by 
his life to compel men to think of God. No hin- 
drance was or is so serious to mission work as the 
utter and often shameless wickedness of those who in 
the eye of the native population stand for "Chris- 
tians." The Indians of the West said of their Span- 
ish conquerors in Central America, " If they are to 
be in heaven, we prefer hell;" and the Indians of 
the East replied to those who preached to them 
purity, "If only the pure in heart can see God, it 
is sure that your countrymen will not be found in 
heaven." 

But the character of Schwartz was a sermon that 
convinced the gainsayers. He spared not himself 
nor counted his own life dear. With an energy and 
unselfishness that have almost no parallel, as they 
had almost no limit, early and late he gave himself 
to work, and what his hands found to do he did with 
his might. His discourse before a small native con- 
gregation was prepared with as much care as if for 



92 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

courts and crowned heads of Europe. The country 
became dotted with native churches. 

He was but forty years old when events occurred 
which stamped his career as unique, even in the 
history of mission enterprise. The Society for 
Promoting Christian Knowledge chose Schwartz for 
its new mission at Trichinopoly. His whole 
allowance was fifty pounds a year. He lived in a 
small room and on a diet of rice and vegetables. A 
church was built to hold two thousand people, but he 
would not allow his work in an English garrison to 
hinder his greater work among the natives. With the 
humblest of them he conferred and counselled, and 
the proud Brahmans were often won by his argu- 
ments, though they, like the Pharisees, feared to con- 
fess Christ, lest they should be put out of their 
"synagogues." 1111769110 so charmed Rajah Tal- 
jajee by his thanks before meat, and his holy conver- 
sation, that when Schwartz left Tanjore, the Rajah 
persuaded him to return ; and so great was his influ- 
ence on the Rajah's subjects that they declared that 
if their prince would set the example his followers 
would all become Christians; and the Rajah might 
perhaps have confessed Christ but for the violent 
opposition of his court. 

Henceforth Schwartz went by the name of the 
" Padre," and was free to go where he would, preach- 
ing and teaching. His life was a living epistle of 
Christ, a whole volume of Christian evidence and 
apologetics. One young nabob said, "Until you 
came we thought of Europeans as godless men who 
did not know the use of prayers." When chosen as 
the only man fit to treat with Hyder Ali, lest his hands 
should even seem defiled with presents he would take 
nothing beyond bare travelling expenses; and his 
candour and courtesy won even that tyrant, so that 
on a subsequent occasion he said, " Send to me none 
of your agents, for I trust neither their words nor 
pledges : send me the Christian missionary and I will 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 93 

receive him." In the awful famine when Tanjore 
was laid waste, the Rajah said, " We have all lost 
our credit ; let us try whether the people will trust 
Schwartz," who was authorized to arrange as he 
could; and in two days a thousand oxen and eighty 
thousand measures of rice were ready for the starving 
garrison. 

This one man, by the simple force of his piety, was 
not only preacher and pastor, but patriarch. He 
made laws and gave judgment. He ministered to 
living and dead. When punishment for slight of- 
fences became necessary, the culprits besought that 
he might himself inflict the penalty, and from his 
judgment there was no attempt or desire to appeal. 
When, in 1787, the Rajah died, his influence pre- 
vented the suttee at the funeral. All unsought by 
him, the magistracy of the country was in the hands 
of this saintly missionary. Freedom from deceitful- 
ness and selfishness made him the organizer of cos- 
mical order in the midst of social chaos. 

After forty-eight years of consecrated service he 
died, his clear voice still ringing out his favourite 
hymn: 

" Only to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ." 

The Rajah's heir, Serjofee, could not be kept, 
even by Hindu custom, from taking his place as a 
chief mourner; and three years later, at his own 
cost, built him a superb marble monument, executed 
by Flaxman. The epitaph he himself wrote, the 
first English verse ever known to be written by a 
native Hindu: 

" Firm wast Thou, humble and wise, 
Honest and pure ; free from disguise ; 
Father of orphans, the widow's support; 
Comfort in sorrow of every sort. 
To the benighted dispenser of light, 
Doing, and pointing to that which is right. 
Blessing to princes, to people, to me, 
May I, my Father, be worthy of Thee, 
Wisheth and praycth thy Sarabojee." 



94 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

William Carey — Pioneer in Organized Missions. 
1761-1834. 

To the Paulerspury " cobbler," the famous mis- 
sionary, Orientalist, translator, has long been con- 
ceded a front rank among pioneers of modern 
missions and the new apostles. 

He was born the year after Zinzendorf died. At 
fourteen years of age a shoemaker's apprentice, he 
was converted at about eighteen, and soon after 
reaching majority joined the Baptists; three years 
later he was ordained minister, serving churches 
first at Moulton and then at Leicester; then in 1793, 
going with Thomas, as the first missionary from 
Britain to India. When he died at seventy-three he 
had for half a century been the leading spirit in 
modern missions to the heathen. 

Several significant stages of progress are notice- 
able in this leadership. First the kindling of the 
fires in his own soul and the feeding of them with 
the fuel of facts; then the carrying of the live coals 
to other fireless altars, fanning the embers until they 
burned and glowed, and guarding the feeble flame lest 
it be smothered by the ashes of apathy, dampened 
by the atmosphere of selfishness, scattered by the 
breath of ridicule, or quenched by the wet earth of 
open hostility. A very distinct stride forward was 
taken in organizing that parent society at Kettering, 
among whose original twelve we strangely miss 
Carey's own name. Then, the next year he became 
its first representative, and actually arrived at Ser- 
ampore to give forty years of service to the field in 
India. 

Carey's life is luminous with lessons. First of all, 
we learn the worth of hard work. He disclaimed 
genius, but claimed "plodding," as his secret. He 
dug down deep into God's word to find His will. 
In the reading of Cook's "Voyages," he went with 
him "round the world," to learn man's state and 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 95 

need, and so he yearned to bring God's word and 
that world together, that human want might find 
its supply, and human woe its solace. From shoe- 
shop at Hackleton to pulpit and chair at Serampore, 
he was the same tireless plodder. Up to 1832 he had 
issued more than two hundred thousand Bibles, 
wholly or in part, and in forty dialects, beside other 
printed matter, including valuable grammars and 
dictionaries of Bengali, Mahratta, Sanskrit, etc. For 
twenty-nine years he was Oriental professor at Fort 
William College in Calcutta. 

Carey's force lay in character. What he wrought 
as a missionary pioneer must find its main explana- 
tion in what he was, as a man of men, a man of God. 
Not what one seems, but what one is, fixes the limit 
of power; the level beyond which the stream never 
rises is the character which is its source and its 
spring. " To be or not to be, that is the question." 
Reputation is at best but the reflection of character, 
and often very imperfect and unfaithful ; the echo, 
faint, feeble, far off; but if the man be what he 
ought, others may filch from him his "good name," 
but he is not made poor. 

Because of what Carey was, he bore without harm 
the brunt of a hard, long fight ; even the keen blade of 
unsanctified wit, when used against him, only dulled 
its edge and blunted its point upon the shield of his 
manly aim and faith in God. To all accusers, tra- 
ducers, ridiculers, his life gave the lie. 

The energy of his will, every purposeful soul may 
emulate and imitate. Life that is aimless is both 
restless and forceless. On the walls of society how 
many a trumpet hangs, as we saw in the case of 
young Raimund Lull, useless, voiceless, rusty ! it has 
no lustre and gives forth no music, and is losing the 
power to emit sound. What an hour of redemption, 
when some brave warrior lays hands on the long 
unused instrument, puts it to his lips and blows a 
bugle blast! 



96 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

Young men — you whose life hangs idle, aimless, 
mute, while the right is battling with the wrong, 
would that some hero-spirit might set you quivering 
and resounding with the clarion-peal of a holy pur- 
pose to serve God and man ! No work is so weari- 
some as doing nothing, no self-sacrifice so costly as 
self-indulgence. Could you wear the " magic skin " 
which makes sure the gratification of every selfish 
whim, it would shrink with every new carnal pleas- 
ure and so at last crush out all true life. 

From the cradle to the grave an indomitable will, 
yoked to a consecrated aim, bore Carey onward, up- 
ward, like the black horse of the rail, over torrents, 
up mountains, drawing after him more passive and 
less positive and resolute souls. With little teach- 
ing he became learned; poor himself he made mil- 
lions rich; by birth obscure he rose to unsought 
eminence; and seeking only to follow the Lord's 
leading, himself led on the Lord's host. 

Carey had passion for souls, and, therefore, en- 
thusiasm for missions: for human uplifting makes 
toil sweet, and loss, gain. Self-denial was his habit, 
and all the accumulations of his life in India were 
turned to the cause of God ; when his income reached 
^1500 he reserved less than fifty for his personal 
expenses, devoting the rest to the purposes of the 
mission. This reminds us of Wesley, who kept his 
personal outlay down to twenty-eight pounds a year, 
though his income rose from fifty to five hundred. 

Carey's companions felt that God was behind him, 
and this constrained them no longer to resist what at 
first seemed the wild scheme of a fanatic, lest haply 
they should have been found fighting against God. 
Dr. Ryland confessed that God himself had infused 
into him that passionate solicitude for the salvation 
of the heathen which could be traced to no other suffi- 
cient source. He who, like Bunyan, had been given 
to dishonesty and profanity; whose untamed tongue 
had been too familiar with the serpent-slime of filth 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 97 

and lies, was from the hour of conversion a new man. 
His native aptitude for linguistic study early led him 
to search into Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French and 
Dutch; and his deep sense of human need and gos- 
pel power, drew him into painstaking investigation 
into the state of the heathen, and into the Bible as 
the secret of saving grace. 

Holy zeal consumed him. For ten years, with in- 
creasing ardour and fervour, he urged in private and 
public prompt and united effort for a world's evan- 
gelization. Whether mending a shoe, reading a 
book, or teaching a boy, he was "absent-minded," for 
his thoughts wandered to the ends of the earth ; he 
saw a thousand millions of lost souls without Bible, 
or preacher, or knowledge of Christ. He read 
Cook's "Voyages " till he knew as much as the writer, 
of the degradation and destitution he had seen ; then 
he bought what other books he could, and borrowed 
what he could not buy; until he had picked up in 
fragments a mass of information so incredible that 
he became a living encyclopedia of missions, and 
even Scott was glad to stop at " Carey's College " 
as he went from Olney to Northampton, and so the 
commentator sat at the cobbler's feet to be taught. 

Andrew Fuller found him at Moulton, a map- 
maker. Out of such crude materials as a cobbler's 
shop could furnish, with paper, paste and ink, he 
had outlined the countries of the world, representing 
to the eye the appalling facts about the race and the 
awful darkness and death-shade in the various lands 
of cruelty and idolatry and superstition. It was thus 
that he was prepared, when but thirty-one years old, 
to publish his powerful "Inquiry into the Obliga- 
tions of Christians," and in the same year at Notting- 
ham to preach that great sermon which has given a 
movement and a motto to missions for a century 
past, and which led to the great step at Kettering, 
the same year, which proved the turning point of 
missionary organization. 



98 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

Behold the strange retributions and revolutions of 
history ! Sydney Smith put Carey and his comrades 
in the pillory, and pelted them with pitiless mockery. 
To-day, not the Church only but the world honours 
with homage the name and memory of that " sancti- 
fied cobbler." Let men ridicule! There is a Nemesis 
of Providence whose hand holds a scourge, not of 
small cords, but of scorpion stings. The "apostates 
of the anvil and the loom " have become God's apos- 
tles of the new Acts, and their witty clerical reviler 
is now in the pillory ! 

Ah, ye humble working men, who, like those prim- 
itive disciples who forsook ship and tax bench to be 
Christ's heralds, have left shoe-shop and shepherd's 
fold, forge and anvil, plough and shuttle, for the sake 
of the Kingdom, what crowns of glory await you when 
the final day of awards rights the wrong of the ages ! 



Robert Morrison — The Apostle of China. 
1782-1834. 

This famous "last-maker" of Morpeth always 
brings to mind one who was born twenty-one years 
in advance of him, the cobbler of Hackleton: for as 
Carey wrought on boots, so Morrison wrought on 
boot-trees. Like Carey, he had but an elementary 
education, and yet had such burning passion for knowl- 
edge that he worked at his trade with book open be- 
side him and gave to study the spare hours even of 
the night. At fifteen years of age he joined the 
Scotch Church, and at nineteen — again like Carey — 
was digging deep among the roots of Latin and He- 
brew tongues, and the more intricate mysteries of 
theology. 

While yet a student at Hoxton, Morrison chose 
the mission field, and in 1804 was accepted by the 
London Missionary Society and designated for 
China. Two years were given to special prepara- 



THE NEW PIONEERS. 99 

tion, studying that strange language under a native 
teacher. He who undertakes the mastery of the 
Chinese tongue will find his patience and persever- 
ance tested. It has been said to demand " a head of 
iron, a chest of oak, nerves of steel, the patience of 
Job and the years of Methusaleh." And yet we 
find Morrison plodding away undismayed at the 
task he had undertaken and laboriously copying 
Chinese manuscripts in the British Museum. 

In 1807 he sailed for the Middle Kingdom as an 
ordained missionary at the age of twenty-five. 
But Chinese hostility to everything British com- 
pelled him to go by way of New York City, from 
which place he bore to the American Consul at 
Canton a letter from the United States Secretary of 
State, James Madison. 

Reaching Canton in September, he took lodging 
in the humblest quarters, adopting for the time 
native habits both of dress and of diet. Forbidden 
to preach, he made closer search into the perplexi- 
ties of the native language, and in 18 10, three years 
after landing, he actually put in print the first copy 
of any portion of the Scriptures ever issued by a 
Protestant missionary in the Chinese tongue. Four 
years later he had completed the translation of the 
whole New Testament, and with the aid of Richard 
Milne, who joined him in 18 13, in four years more 
he had ready the entire Old Testament also. It 
seems incredible, but it is true, that in 182 1, less 
than fourteen years after he set foot on Chinese soil, 
this one man gave to the Celestials the complete 
Word of God in their own vernacular. This was a 
herculean labor, and can be appreciated only by 
those who have undertaken a similar task amid cir- 
cumstances equally discouraging, disheartening and 
difficult. 

But this missionary Hercules has other " labours," 

as worthy to be reckoned among gigantic achieve- 

lents. During the eleven years between 1807 and 



100 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

1818, he had also prepared and published a Chinese 
grammar of three hundred pages, quarto; and a 
" View of China," for philological purposes. Verily, 
there have been giants, even in these modern days, 
who have confronted, undismayed, foes more formid- 
able than the Anakim with their chariots of iron. 
To create a new version of the Scriptures — a first 
attempt, without either helpful precedents or ade- 
quate linguistic helps — was an undertaking from 
which any man but Morrison or Carey would have 
shrunk back dismayed. 

These labours were literally colossal. The Old 
Testament alone formed twenty-one volumes duo- 
decimo; but even such tasks were followed by a 
greater, for he compiled a Chinese dictionary, which 
he published in the same year with the completed 
Bible, and which cost the East India Company five 
thousand pounds sterling to issue ! 

When Morrison died in 1834, he had devoted 
twenty-seven years to China as a missionary 
teacher, translator of God's Word, and distributor of 
a new and sacred literature. He had laid at Malacca 
in 18 18 the foundations of the Anglo-Chinese College, 
which was afterward removed to Hong-Kong; and 
himself gave toward the buildings and the support of 
the infant enterprise, twenty-two hundred pounds. 

The University of Glasgow sought to pay a tribute 
to his great intellectual worth, when it conferred 
upon him, at the early age of thirty-five, the degree 
of doctor in divinity; and the nation honored him 
eight years later by making him a Fellow of the 
Royal Society; and George IV. granted him a special 
audience, on which occasion he presented the king 
with a copy of his translation of the Scriptures into 
the Chinese tongue. 

But these honours pale beside the crown which God 
placed upon his head in permitting him to be the 
great pioneer in that most huge and hoary empire of 
Asia. What a conspicuous example is Morrison of 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 101 

that grand truth, so needful to be learned, that no 
man's true work can be measured by man's yard- 
stick. Morrison was only a pioneer. He led the 
way, and that is all. The end of his work as a phi- 
lologist and translator was but the beginning of the 
work of evangelization and education which others 
have done after him and are now doing. Morrison 
toiled hard but saw little fruit of his toil. He broke 
up the fallow soil, sowed the seed, but never saw the 
harvest and put in the sickle. The same year in 
which he gave the New Testament to the people, he 
baptized the first Chinese convert, and for four years 
Tsai-a-Ko adorned the doctrine, until he was called 
up into the true country of the Celestials. But Mor- 
rison's reward was postponed for a future day. He 
ordained to the ministry Leang-Afa, after eight 
years, during which he had tested his fitness for the 
work. To present a nation whose population repre- 
sents one-fourth of the human race, with the entire 
Bible ; to lay the foundations of a Christian college 
among them ; to gather to Christ the first convert, 
and ordain the first native evangelist, is enough for 
one man. But, be it remembered, that as this work 
of missions is all " God's building," he who lays the 
foundation-stones, down deep, out of sight, and 
whose work may be forgotten by man in the gran- 
deur of more conspicuous and famous achievement, 
has in God's eyes equal honour and shall have equal 
reward with him who lays the capstone upon a 
completed structure amid shouts of joy and triumph. 
The rough base-blocks lie beneath the surface, hid- 
den from human gaze — but they hold up the whole 
building. But for them the stately column with its 
delicate tracery, the graceful arch, the sculptured 
frieze and cornice, the tapering spire or pinnacle, or 
the glorious dome, were impossible. And so, when 
China's evangelization is complete, and the temple 
of God stands in perfect beauty, Robert Morrison's 
work will receive both its full recognition and reward. 



102 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

Samuel J. Mills — Founder of Missions, in America. 
1783-1818. 

Here is -another example of spiritual heredity. 
This son of a Torringford minister was from birth 
the subject of pious instruction; but the influence 
that shaped his character antedated even his birth, 
for his mother declared that she had consecrated 
him, while yet unborn, to the service of God as a 
missionary. And from the hour of conversion, he 
felt an unconquerable desire, which might better be 
called a passion, for service in regions beyond. This 
passion instead of cooling with years rather burned 
more hotly, and during his college career at Wil- 
liamstown, from 1806 to 1809, was a consuming flame. 
There he formed the little band whose professed pur- 
pose was to " effect in the persons of its members a 
mission to the heathen"; and in 1810, at Andover, 
Hall, Newell, Judson and Nott joined him in that 
memorial to the General Association of Massachusetts 
which led to the formation of the American Board, 
the pioneer of all societies, on this side of the sea, 
for carrying the gospel to the world. 

This man, little known as he is even to this day, 
was the moving spring behind much of the machinery 
of missions both at home and abroad. President 
Griffin of Williams College declared that, from the 
mind of Mills and from the little society he formed 
at college came not only the great Missionary Board, 
but the American Bible Society, United Foreign 
Missionary Society, and African School under care 
of the Synods of New York and New Jersey; and all 
the impulse given to Domestic Missions, to the Colo- 
nization Society, and to the general cause of benevo- 
lence in both hemispheres. 

The name of Samuel J. Mills thus stands high in 
rank, for he was in a sense the father and founder of 
missions in America. About the time when Carey 
was dreaming, over his cobbling, of the thousand 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 103 

millions without Christ, Mills was born, in 1783. 
Before birth a godly mother, as we have seen, conse- 
crated him to missions; at fifteen the Spirit's " de- 
monstration," with its swift logic of the lightning- 
flash revealed to him his lost state and his Saviour; 
and from the hour when he knew himself a miracle 
of grace, like Saul of Tarsus he had but one aim. 
Conversion was, with him, consecration, illumination, 
revelation, all at once. God had plainly set him 
apart to a missionary career, but none the less did he 
set himself apart. Active benevolence was the one 
law of his life, and wherever he was or went, he 
found a field for his activity. 

His life was apparently a failure to carry out his 
original design. What at first lie willed to do he 
never lived to work out ; it remained like the un- 
finished statue of the sculptor, where the chisel has 
just begun to show the beauty of the ideal form. 
And yet no man's life was ever a truer success. In 
a way wholly unforeseen and unique, he fulfilled God's 
purpose, and it proved larger in scope and grander in 
result than his own. From the age of sixteen he 
flamed with one passion : to bear the gospel to the 
heathen. If ever a man's holy passion was a prophecy 
of a life-work, his absorbing ambition was the promise 
of a mission in foreign lands, though he never actu- 
ally entered on the work he had chosen. Yet the 
disappointment was God's appointment; for God 
meant that he should fulfil a far wider mission. 

This was the work of Mills : to show that when the 
true spirit of missions burns, it can be pent up by no 
restraints, quenched by no seeming failures. Mills 
was everywhere a missionary. Humble as he was, 
his motto was, not to " rest satisfied till he had made 
his influence felt in the remotest corner of this ruined 
world." He waited for no new doors to open but 
went into the doors that were opened. No dreams 
of a field, more to his liking, kept him from tilling 
the field at his feet. In college he was planting trees 



104 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

of righteousness; and so the famous haystack at 
Williamstown was consecrated by his meetings with 
a few like-minded fellow-students, and in its shelter 
was formed the covenant that sent Newell and Judson 
to India and Burma, and became the origin of the 
American Board. 

Mills died at thirty-five. Few lives at seventy- 
five can compare in work for God. Perhaps no man 
ever started moving more vast and varied schemes 
of Christian work, and so projected the lines of his 
influence to the ends of the earth and perpetuated it 
to the end of the age. His mind was overwhelmed 
with the deep night-shade of paganism. He made 
himself master of facts, and then used them as shot 
and shell to beat down the walls of carelessness and in- 
difference. He yearned to enter at once the thousand 
gates to fields of holy work, to have every limb a 
tongue, and every tongue a trumpet to spread the 
sound of the gospel! He found in every new fact 
a new force, to impel to new work. He met the 
poor heathen lad from Hawaii, and that led him to 
form the foreign mission school to train such as him 
for service. When not yet ready to go to foreign 
lands, he could not wait in idleness. He leaped into 
the saddle and for months explored the half-settled 
South and West of the United States. Hardships 
hindered him not. He swam streams swollen with 
rains and then stopped to dry his wet clothes and 
pushed on, making way through dense forests, wading 
through swamps, hungry and drenched, daring wild 
men and wild beasts, that he might learn the desti- 
tution of the people and supply them with the word 
of God, preaching and conversing as he went ; and 
then coming back to the Eastern coast to organize 
Bible societies and home missionary effort. Like a 
warrior fresh from the battle-field, he went every- 
where trumpeting in Christian ears the awful 
spiritual wants of the seventy-six thousand families 
he had found without even a Bible. His charity 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 105 

began at home, but it did not stay there. He felt 
that he must pass the limits even of those great 
states and territories. He felt himself " in a pinhole " 
even in the great Mississippi valley, while the broad 
earth lay beyond with its destitute millions. He 
waited not, like another Micawber, for opportunity 
to turn up ; he made opportunity. Being for a little 
time in New York City he made explorations in the 
metropolis as thorough as in his Southern tours. 
When all eyes were turned to Africa, and the coloni- 
zation scheme was formed, he threw his energies 
into that, and himself sailed for the Dark Continent on 
a mission in its behalf, and on his return voyage died 
and was buried at sea. 

For the young men of this generation I can find 
no finer example of a consecrated life. At thirty- 
five years his life-work on earth closed. Yet already 
he had lived a century, if life is measured by its aims 
and achievements. Most of us do not begin to live 
until we begin to die. Most men think of life as all 
before them at an age when his was all behind him. 
He packed the years with noble work for God and 
man, and made every day a week, and every week a 
month, and every month a year, in the reckoning of 
service. Like a comet whose brilliance increases so 
fast as it nears its perihelion, he moved nearer and 
nearer to his Lord, and his life grew brighter and 
more glorious, until its lustre was lost in the sun of 
righteousness into whose splendours it was merged. 



ADONIRAM JUDSON APOSTLE OF BURMA. 1788-1850. 

When God thrust Judson forth to serve Him in 
the field of missions, He knew His man, for He had 
trained and fitted him for His work. His genius was 
not inferior to that of Duff; his industry, to that of 
Carey; his piety, to that of Wayland; his spiritual 
instincts not less keen than those of Schwartz. His 



106 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

career embodies the romance of heroism, touched 
and tinged with the pathos of severe suffering. 

God meant Judson to be a pioneer at Burma, and 
he combined the qualities needful in leaders of great 
enterprises, — self-reliance tempered with humility, 
energy restrained by prudence, activity anointed 
with unselfishness; and, withal, that patience and 
passionate love for souls which no man knows until 
he is devoted to a holy purpose and is absorbed 
in God. 

Judson was one of the five now famous men whose 
offer of themselves for work abroad became the 
nucleus of the American Board of Commissioners for 
Foreign Missions. On the way to India, the radical 
change of his views on the subject of baptism became 
the germ of a new movement, the organization of 
the American Baptist Missionary Union; so that 
providentially he led the way in the formation of 
two of the most efficient and successful among all 
the existing missionary societies. 

Like many another of God's heroes, disappoint- 
ment met him at the outset. India was his chosen 
field, but he was driven further on to Burma, and so 
became there the first missionary of the new Baptist 
Board, thus doubly diverted from a Presbyterian 
mission and from India, that he might found a Baptist 
mission in Burma. It was another illustration of the 
Higher Power that is back of contrary winds. God 
drove him out of his course as he had planned it, to 
drive him into another course, as God had planned it. 
There was a barrier that suffered him not to go into 
Bithynia, that he might obey another call and enter 
an open door into Macedonia. 

Four facts stand in the foremost rank in the fur- 
nishing of this Burmese apostle. 

First, the fact of his conversion. Of this he had that 
clear assurance, for lack of which nothing else will 
compensate. Whether poets are " born " or " made," 
there is no doubt about a true missionary. He must 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 107 

be born from above. He can never be made by man. 
No native genius or acquired scholarship, no endow- 
ments of nature or attainments of culture, can supply 
the place of regeneration. Nay more, it is the men 
who are saved and know it, who by their experience 
give life and power to their testimony. The mes- 
sage needs the man to back it; the Bible needs the 
believer behind it. The righteousness of God is re- 
vealed from faith in the preacher, to faith in the 
hearer. 

Secondly, the fact of his call. The work of a mis- 
sionary was his vocation. The voice of conviction 
and of consciousness affirmed it. With Paul he could 
say, " It pleased God who separated me from my 
mother's womb, and called me by His grace, to re- 
veal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among 
the heathen." From the very first he heard and 
heeded, that voice, and went out not knowing whither 
he went. Because it was an example of the obedi- 
ence of faith, he went on in the midst of disappoint- 
ments ; the retrospect might be dark and the aspect 
darker, but the ' ' prospect was as bright as the 
promises of God." 

Thirdly, the fact that he had the word of God. 
To him the Bible was God's own book ; he believed 
in it throughout, and loved it. His devotion to it 
reminds us again of the famous Tuscan sculptor's 
fondness for that relic of the Athenian Apollonius 
in the Vatican, for Judson studied the Bible from 
every point of view, as M. Angelo did the torso. 

His reverent affection for God's word made it a 
constant delight to study it. Compared with its 
infallible oracles, " the tradition of the elders " was 
nothing, and his aim was to construct his own char- 
acter, and build in Burma an Apostolic Church, in all 
things according to the pattern showed him in the 
holy mount. That this word might mould the 
people, he became translator, and so joined the noble 
army to which belonged Waldo and Lefevre, Wyclif 



108 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

and Tyndale, Luther and Bedell, Carey and Eliot, 
Morrison and Hepburn. 

Fourthly, the fact that he held a scriptural idea of 
missions. He had learned that to preach the gospel 
to unsaved souls is the one grand business of the 
Church. Too many seem to count this but as one 
of many forms of benevolent work, and they talk of 
missions as an organization of the Church. But 
Judson saw that the converse is true; that the 
Church is both the result and fruit of missions; and 
his life motto was : The Church is both constituted 
and commissioned to preach the gospel to the world. 
Of course, then, the chief work of the missionary is 
put beyond doubt. Though a man of the instincts 
and the culture of a scholar, finely fitted for a teacher, 
true to his principles, he made it his one great work 
to preach Christ, and all else held lower rank. 

To estimate Judson aright we must emphasize 
his scriptural idea of a Church. To him it was no 
worldly association or religious club of respectable 
moralists, or people whose claim to membership 
rested upon their baptism in infancy. It was no 
lawless democracy, or lordly monarchy, or titled 
aristocracy; no mutual benefit society or social com- 
munity for religious and ethical culture. He 
believed the Church to be a divine institution, com- 
posed of converted souls; its threefold end, spiritual 
worship, holy living, and unselfish service. He 
sought, therefore, first of all to preach that gospel 
by which souls are saved ; then out of converts to 
form New Testament Churches, and make them 
self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating ; 
and to raise up a native ministry as the condition of 
their normal development. 

He particularly interests the student of missions, 
as one who projected a biblical theory of missions 
and put his theory into effective practice. His plan 
was essentially Pauline, and it led to and fed an un- 
selfish heroism. The mission field offered a tempt- 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 109 

ing bait to ambition and avarice, as it became plain 
even to the Burmese powers what a high order of 
man this humble missionary was. But Judson lived 
and died poor. He illustrated the self-abnegation 
which is the cardinal law and primary condition of a 
missionary life. As Dr. Maclaren finely says, "The 
chord that vibrates most musically is itself unseen 
while it vibrates." 

The apostle of Burma believed every man's life to 
be a plan of God, and that he should study to find 
out and fill out that plan. The result was, as it 
always is, an increase of power. His weak will was 
energized by the stronger will of God, and his sphere 
was constantly expanding as his capacity was enlarg- 
ing ; as God gave him more power to work, he gave 
him more room to work. Another result was a con- 
stant deepening of joy. Partnership with God made 
easy to him patient doing, bearing, and — what is 
hardest — waiting. And last of all came certain suc- 
cess, for God never fails, nor does he who sides with 
God. 

Blessed is he who, like Judson, learns to call 
Jesus not only Saviour, but Lord. The clear eye to 
see, the prompt will to obey, the total self-surrender 
to serve, at whatever cost of sacrifice and suffer- 
ing — these are the steps whereby we keep to God's 
plan, and get that enduement of power which both 
brings and is, success. When the daughter of Pastor 
A. G. Brown, of London, was asked what led her to 
China, she said: "I had known Jesus as Saviour, 
Redeemer, Friend; but as soon as I knew Him as 
Lord and Master, He said to me, 'Am I thy Lord 
and Master ? then go to China.' " 

When Judson died, hundreds of baptized Burmans 
and Karens were sleeping in Jesus, and over seven 
thousand survived, in sixty-three churches, under 
oversight of one hundred and sixty-three mission- 
aries, native pastors, and helpers. Judson had 
finished his Bible translation, compiled a Burmese 



110 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

dictionary, and laid the basis of Christian character 
deep down in the Burman heart. 

In the Baptist meeting-house at Maiden, Massachu- 
setts, one may read upon a simple memorial tablet : 

"In flSemortam. 

Rev. Adonjram Jldson. 

Born August 9, 1788, 

Died April 12, 1850. 

Maiden, his Birthplace, 

The Ocean, his Sepulchre ; 

Converted Buraians 

and 

The Burman Bible 

His Monument. 

His Record is on High." 

Captain Allen F. Gardiner — Pioneer of Tierra 
del Fuego. 1 794-185 1. 

It was a striking saying of the Hon. Ion Keith Fal- 
coner, the noble martyr of the mission at Aden, that 
we must not fear to be called " eccentric." That 
word means " out of centre," and if we are in the 
true centre as to God, in the orbit of obedience, we 
shall be out of centre as to the world. 

Allen Gardiner was an enthusiast, a fanatic, but in 
the eyes of God he was fired with a divine passion. 
His enthusiasm was an " en-the-ism." While an 
officer in the English navy, the death of his young 
wife left him free to give himself to missionary ser- 
vice, and he shrank not from pioneer work among 
the worst heathens. After a trial of other lands he 
turned to South America, but there was no open 
door, for priests of Papal Rome stood between him 
and the wild pagan tribes of the far South, until, 
at the Southern Cape itself, he found the island of 
Tierra del Fuego, so remote that Spanish Jesuits 
cared not to keep up their pursuit. 



THE NE W PIONEERS. Ill 

Dr. Flint says of the gospel, that its divine origin is 
seen in its universal adaptation. Here is the magic 
mirror in which the Eskimo and Maori, Fuegian 
and Fijian, Melanesian cannibals and Australian abo- 
rigines alike see reflected what they are, and what 
they may be. The message of Christ crucified and 
risen has captivated alike the wisest sage and the 
simplest child; because meant for the universal man 
it finds a reception wherever it gets a hearing. 
Darwin himself, who found, in the natives of this 
"Land of Fire," the missing link between man and 
the monkey, has left on record his testimony that 
" the lesson of the missionary is the wand of the en- 
chanter." 

Against all conceivable obstacles Allen Gardiner 
persevered. Nature herself was inhospitable; the 
climate forbade his approach: winds and waves, 
summer rains and winter sleet, drove him back. Man 
gave him no welcome. The Patagonians had low 
foreheads, but lower minds and morals, wretched 
hovels and scant clothing; they seemed incapable of 
any high impulses or real improvement. At times 
they were like brute beasts ; at others, treacherous 
robbers. At first he was compelled to retreat, and 
return to England. But, if he could not land on the 
shore, he could float on the sea ; and so we have that 
unique illustration of a new method in missions, in 
Captain Gardiner's two-decked boats at Banner Bay, 
where, with two catechists and two more pious sailors, 
he undertook to do pioneer work among the natives, 
from his floating home. Everyone of his party per- 
ished, never again seen alive by an Englishman. 
Starvation slowly slew them, and only their dead 
bodies and their diaries were found to tell the awful 
tale. One by one, and Gardiner last of all, they had 
succumbed to hunger. 

Yet there had been no whining nor murmuring. 
The farewell message of the last survivor bore testi- 
mony : ' ' Poor and weak as we are, our boat is a very 



112 THE KEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

Bethel to our souls, for we feel and know that God is 
here. Asleep or awake," wrote Captain Gardiner, 
"I am, beyond the power of expression, happy." 
Instead of vain repining- or lamenting, he left behind 
only earnest entreating that the mission should not 
be abandoned, and left a brief plan outlining future 
operations. 

Such was his passionate love for God that, even 
while starving, he could record nothing save marvels 
of mercy, and declared that after five days of fasting 
he felt neither hunger nor thirst. And over the 
place where he lay down to die he had inscribed, on 
the rock, from the Psalms, this precious motto : 

" Wait, O my soul, upon God! 
For all my expectation is from Him." 

He died, having seen no results of his work. He 
had sown in tears, but not a blade appeared. It 
was, however, no failure; for to-day among the 
heathen tribes of Paraguay there is springing up a 
plenteous harvest. Hope was deferred, but not lost; 
faith was tried but not tired, and triumphed. 

It was a very strange way by which God led Allen 
Gardiner. His love for maritime adventure led him to 
a naval college, and into service in the navy. Little 
did he know that the curiosity which drew him to a 
heathen temple in China to witness the superstitions 
of idolaters, was to be the means of quickening the 
seed sown in his heart by pious parents. He saw 
what heathenism was, and he took his stand boldly 
for Christ and the Gospel. He began to seek the 
salvation of his shipmates, who were practically 
pagans; then as the ship touched at various ports he 
obtained leave of absence and explored the region 
near by, and so made himself familiar everywhere 
with the spiritual condition of the natives. 

The passion for mission work became more in- 
tense. In 1S34, he went to Zululand, but was driven 
thence three years later by the cruel war between 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 113 

Chief Dingaan and the Dutch farmers. A whole 
year was spent in fruitless effort to get entrance for 
the gospel into New Guinea; then for ten months he 
was on the Falkland Islands, and while there visited 
Patagonia, where he besought the Church Missionary 
Society to plant a mission; and in 1845, he himself 
with Robert Hunt, anchored in Gregory Bay; but 
Chief Wissale's " petulance, cupidity, treachery, dis- 
honesty and extortion " again compelled withdrawal, 
and even as they were conveying their few effects 
on board an English bark, this dastardly chief 
was plying his thieving arts. 

In the same year, 1845, nothing daunted, Gardiner 
with Mr. Gonzalez went to Bolivia, daring the Ata- 
cama desert for the gospel's sake. Again met by dis- 
heartening obstacles, in 1848, he headed a small pio- 
neer party of five, whose destination was Tierra del 
Fuego, where the hopeless hostility of the natives, 
led on by Chief Jemmy Button, convinced him 
that " The missionary establishment must for the 
present be afloat! " Often perplexed, he was never 
in despair, and nothing could kill his imperishable 
faith and hope. ' ' Being with him was like a heaven 
upon earth: he was such a man of prayer," said 
Joseph Erwin, his boat carpenter. 

Captain Smyley's journal and Captain Morshead's 
letters gave the public the awful facts about the ex- 
perience of this starved party of missionaries — how 
from June 22 to Sept. 6, when Gardiner must have 
died, they had been out of provisions. Men who read 
or heard this pathetic tale, knew not which emotion 
was the mightier, horror at such a tale of suffering, 
or admiration at such dauntless heroism. 

Secretary Despard published far and wide the 
decision of the Patagonian Society, that "With 
God's help, the mission shall not be abandoned;" and 
the Allen Gardiner left Bristol in 1854, and in 1855 
once more anchored in Spaniards' Harbour. A few 
days later, at Earnest Cove, a new mission party had 



114 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

"the mournful satisfaction of standing on the spot 
where the remains of Gardiner were found," and, 
with appropriate memorial services, of setting up a 
tablet: "In memory of the lamented missionary 
martyrs." 

The period of trial was not yet past. In 1858, a 
suitable site was fixed upon for a mission, which 
was named Wycliffe. But Capt. Fell and brother, 
and Mr. Phillips, the catechist, were brutally mur- 
dered, and the Allen Gardiner was found in Beagle 
Channel a perfect wreck, with one survivor, the 
cook. 

Again the wrecked vessel being repaired, another 
beginning was made, and since 1872 the work has 
gone steadily forward. On Keppel Island, Fuegians 
are boarded and trained. El Carmen, on the coast, 
has been a medical mission for thirty years past. 
The Allen Gardiner still goes on its mission cruises, 
and it has been so demonstrated that brutal Pata- 
gonians and Fuegians may be evangelized, civilized, 
christianized, that Admiral Sulivan, at the annual 
meeting of the South American Missionary Society 
in 1 88 1, stated, after residing at the Falkland Islands, 
that he had informed Darwin of the great changes 
which had taken place in his human monkeys — of 
kindness shown to shipwrecked crews by the con- 
verted natives — how fowl-houses remained unlocked 
without even the theft of an egg; and stated, that in 
reply Darwin had candidly confessed, "I could not 
have believed that all the missionaries in the world 
could ever have made the Fuegians honest." 

So remarkable is the testimony of this great 
naturalist, who was, however, no "supernaturalist," 
that with his oft-quoted testimony we close this 
brief sketch. He had said after his visit to Patagonia, 
"Nothing can be done by means of mission work; 
all the pains bestowed on the natives will be thrown 
away; they never can be civilized." This was Dar- 
win's opinion until proofs of the facts confronted 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 115 

him, and then he candidly admitted he was wrong-, 
and added : "I had always thought that the civiliza- 
tion of the Japanese is the most wonderful thing in 
history; but I am now convinced that what the 
missionaries have done in Tierra del Fuego, in civiliz- 
ing the natives, is at least as wonderful." And from 
this time Darwin himself regularly subscribed to the 
society's funds. 

John Williams — The Apostle of the South Seas. 
1796-1839. 

How curious are the coincidences of history ! It 
was only six weeks after Williams was born, when 
The Duff sailed for Tahiti, as though the ship that 
was to introduce the gospel to the Southern Seas 
waited until the coming apostle of those island 
groups was born, before it unfurled its sails ! 

The life we now outline covered only about forty- 
three years, from June 29, 1796, to Nov. 20, 1839. 
But it was crowded with the wonderful works of 
God. At twenty-one years of age, John Williams 
was sent to Eimeo, thence removing to Huahine and 
Raiatea. After five years of apostolic success, he 
visited the Hervey group, founding a mission at 
Raratonga, where he prepared books and in part a 
Bible translation. Then in a boat, built by himself, 
he explored most of the surrounding archipelago, 
establishing the Samoan mission. Four years were 
spent in England, from 1834 to 1838, publishing his 
story of the South Seas and his Raratongan New 
Testament, raising five thousand pounds for a new 
missionary ship, and planning for a high school at 
Tahiti, and a theological school at Raratonga for 
training native evangelists. With sixteen recruits 
he returned to his most loved work, visited Samoa, 
sailed for the New Hebrides to start a new mission, 
and, on the shores of Erromanga, fell a martyr. 
Twenty-two years — from the ironmonger's forge in 



116 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

London to the savage's club at Dillon's Bay! But 
what a unique mission, and what a lustrous record on 
high! 

Williams, though generally and deservedly known 
as the Apostle of the South Seas, was not the pioneer 
in those waters. Captain Cook's voyages had turned 
toward these island clusters many eyes besides those 
of William Carey and the Countess of Huntingdon. 
When, in 1795, the London Missionary Society was 
founded, such interest had been awakened in this 
archipelago, that as early as August 10, of the 
next year, The Duff set sail for Tahiti, under com- 
mand of that devoted Christian, Captain James 
Wilson, and with thirty missionaries aboard. More 
than twenty years had gone by before John Williams 
followed, but his career was so exceptional, that 
without it the work in Polynesia would be a drama 
without its main actor. 

The religious revolution wrought under his very 
eyes has, for rapidity and range of result, no parallel. 
The prophecy was literally fulfilled: 

" The isles shall wait for His law : 
As soon as they hear of me they shall obey me. 
The strangers shall submit themselves to me." 

A year after Raratonga was discovered by Will- 
iams, idolatry was in ruins; a whole people called 
upon themselves the name of the Lord, and built a 
place of worship six hundred feet long, where Aitu- 
takian chiefs were the main speakers. Greater won- 
der still, — all this, before one English missionary had 
yet taught on the island! God had used, to work 
this transformation, two plain, untaught natives! 
Here, ten years after Williams had sailed for Eimeo, 
he met the largest concourse of worshippers he had 
ever seen outside of his own country; and as they 
moved past him they laid at his feet fourteen huge 
idols as gospel trophies ! 

The Raratongans kept their Sabbaths as he had 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 117 

never seen the Day of Rest kept before. Prayer 
saluted the sunrise and the sunset, as though to 
punctuate holy time with worship, and the hours 
between were full of studies in the Word of God, for 
the people made notes of all the sermons they heard, 
that they might search, like the Bereans, into the 
truths they were taught. New codes of laws were built 
upon the corner-stone of this teaching; marriage 
was hallowed and polygamy proscribed. One island 
after another became a sanctuary, vocal with prayer 
and praise. Chiefs presided at holocausts of idols, 
stripping the gay trappings from their former gods, 
and feeding them as fuel to the fires. There were 
cases in which a few hours sufficed, to complete the 
destruction of all false gods and idol fanes, and to 
lay the foundations of chapels for Christian worship. 

One scene it is well to delineate as an example of 
many. Tomatoa and his followers approach Opoa. 
A crowd is at the beach to seize the usual captives 
of war. But a herald shouts from the canoes, ' ' We 
bring to you no slain victims; we are all praying 
people who worship the true God; these" — holding 
up the books prepared by missionaries — "these are 
our victims and trophies of war." 

When the war-god, Oro, was disrobed, and his 
temple burned by converts at Opoa, the heathen 
party built a huge cage of wicker-work in which 
to burn all the Christians alive. Unceasing prayer 
brought such plain help from above, that in the 
ensuing struggle even the enemies of the Lord felt 
that His hand was against them, and they threw 
down their weapons and fled, panic-stricken. They 
looked only for vengeance from their Christian con- 
querors, but found instead a sumptuous feast prepared 
for them, and for sheer astonishment could not eat. 
Then one of the vanquished heathen party rose and 
said : ' ' Others may act as they will ; but never again 
will I worship gods that could give no help in the 
hour of danger. We were four times as many as 



118 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

these praying people, and yet they have defeated us 
with the greatest ease. Their god must be the true 
God. Theirs is a religion of mercy. Had we won 
the victory they would now be burning in that cage ; 
but instead of burning us, they feed us. I will go and 
join this people!" Such was the power of these 
words that every one of the heathen party bowed 
that night in prayer to the God of the Christians, 
and praised Him for giving to His own praying 
people the victory! And the next morning, after 
prayer, all united in destroying, in Tahua and Raiatea, 
every Marae, so that within three days not one ves- 
tige of idol worship was left ! 

John Williams' career was one triumphal progress. 
At Savaii, for instance, tears of joy greeted him; 
and he met a people ready formally to renounce 
paganism. Malietoa, the chief, begged him with all 
speed to go to his native land and bring back 
teachers. How pathetic was his plea: "Comeback 
as soon as you can ; for before you return many of 
us will be dead." 

The Maruans, who were wont to trace every evil of 
any kind to bad spirits, turned to God, and proved 
the sincerity of their faith by ruined Maraes and 
broken idols. Spears that had once impaled children 
and borne them as trophies to the temples, were now 
turned into pulpit balustrades, and Oro and other 
grim idols of wood were used as props to common 
wood-sheds and cook-houses. Unchaste songs and 
gestures gave place to hymns of praise and bowed 
knees. 

The changes which the apostle of the South Seas 
saw, defied description, and when described seem 
fables for the credulous. He himself was overawed 
by the proofs of the hand of God. At Tahiti, over 
fourteen years had gone by before one convert was 
made; and at New Zealand, twenty years, before 
there seemed to be one honest inquirer. Yet Will- 
iams witnessed changes nothing short of a radical 



THE NEW PIONEERS. 119 

revolution, within twenty, eighteen, twelve months, 
and sometimes within as many days. He went to 
islands where all were heathens; he visited them 
later to find chapels with thousands of worshippers; 
he found them without a written language, and left 
them reading in their own tongue the wonderful 
words of God! 

Williams was of great service in furnishing ele- 
mentary primers, translations of the gospels and 
epistles, and creating a Christian native literature. 
He trained converts into evangelists, who made 
tours among the surrounding islands until no 
heathen settlement remained unvisited. He taught 
converts the grace of giving, and when they had no 
money, they marked their pigs or other possessions, 
with the Lord's sign, and sacredly put into His 
treasury whatever they brought in the market. 

One comprehensive statement may serve to sum- 
marize this marvellous story of apostolic success. 
Five years before he fell, no group of islands, nor 
single island of importance, within two thousand 
miles of Tahiti, had been left unvisited. 

This martyr's death was doubtless due to a misap- 
prehension. The natives of Erromanga had come 
to hate the sight of foreigners, because of recent 
wrongs at the hands of a crew, whose vessel touched 
at those shores. But history has her unique compen- 
sation as well as retribution. Fifty years after 
Williams fell, the son of his murderer was laying 
the corner-stone of the martyr's memorial, while 
another son was preaching the gospel for which that 
martyr died ! 

Louis Harms — The Missionary Pastor. 
1808-1865. 

This man was another of God's pioneers, but his per- 
sonal field was the parish of Hermannsburgh. His 
divine vocation was found in furnishing an example 



120 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

of what one man and his congregation can do in the 
furtherance of the world-wide work. 

When that disabled candidal came to that obscure 
parish in Hanover, and told his simple tale of the 
wants and woes of the heathen, little did he know 
that, though laid aside from the work himself, he was 
there lighting a fire which was never to be quenched, 
but to spread far and wide. When the heart of Pas- 
tor Harms was kindled with new zeal for missions, 
the people whom he led felt the fire burning within 
them also; and, though but a few and feeble folk, 
mostly occupied with farming and such like work, 
and too poor to give large sums of money, they re- 
sponded to his appeal. He said first of all to him- 
self and to them, " Why should we not help missions?" 
This question soon prompted another, "Why may 
we not plan missions of our own?" There were in- 
credulous spirits that, like the Samarian lord, asked, 
"If the Lord would open windows in Heaven, might 
this thing be ! " But faith and prayer and self-sacri- 
fice prevailed, and a moral miracle was wrought. 

The simple Hermannsburghers began by offerings 
of money, but they soon found it easy also to offer 
themselves. One man gave his farm, and the farm- 
house became a training school, where missionary 
candidates, who willingly volunteered for service, 
began to be educated for the fields abroad. Then a 
sailor suggested the building and launching of their 
own ship, to bear their missionaries to other lands, 
and sail to and fro, as a medium of communication ; 
and so the Candace — first of mission ships — was built 
and manned by themselves, and became a shuttle to 
weave threads of practical contact between the 
Church at home and its workers abroad, and carry 
mutual messages of love and sympathy. 

This was not all. While sending forth scores of 
men and women to be its heralds and tell the old 
story of the cross, the Church scattered yet increased, 
until its membership reached ten thousand and it 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 121 

became the largest Church in Christendom. Not 
content with supplying workmen and caring for their 
wants, it set up its own printing-press, printed its 
own missionary magazine, and thus became in itself a 
whole board of missions, with its own training 
school, mission treasury, vessel and periodical, and 
all the apparatus of a well-organized and thoroughly 
conducted missionary society ; and although for nearlv 
thirty years Louis Harms has been dead, the work 
remains to witness to the Church and to the world. 

That one man, and he but forty years old, and 
with a simple rural parish, should start such a work, 
has been a problem to all who do not know the 
power which comes from the Spirit of God in answer 
to prayer. Though the undertaking was formally 
inaugurated in 1849, f° r years before, the foundations 
had been preparing in the heart of Harms. While in 
charge of his father's private school, six years earlier, 
and as his assistant in parish work, he wielded a 
sceptre of influence over the people which showed 
him to be one of God's anointed kings. Alike in 
private converse and public address, he swayed the 
hearts of those poor peasants. When, in 1844, he 
became his father's assistant and was ordained, his 
hold on the people became stronger. His holy zeal, 
his passionate ardour and fervour, his intensely 
human sympathy, brought him into close contact with 
their hearts, and led to a great religious awakening, 
which was, as it always is, accompanied by a new 
missionary spirit. In fact, it is hard to say which 
was first in order of development; for Harms had so 
long felt the leverage there is in missions to raise 
spiritual life to a higher level, that he sought to 
arouse new interest in the heathen as one means of 
raising Church members to a higher plane. And 
when thus the parish had been made ready, it was 
only needful that the external circumstances should 
favour, in order for the work to be actually in- 
augurated. 



122 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

While acting as his father's assistant, Louis Harms 
felt under restraint, but at his father's death, he was 
appointed pastor, and so the building whose base- 
blocks had long been laid began to rise toward com- 
pletion. 

To trace the history of the Hermannsburgh Society- 
would be impracticable within these limits, and would 
not serve our present purpose. In 1890, there were 
some sixty stations, with a total of about three hun- 
dred missionaries and native helpers. But it does 
concern us to learn the lesson which God surely 
means to teach by this new chapter in the Acts of the 
Apostles. If a single Church, under the leadership 
of one man, and he broken in health, a chronic in- 
valid, and his people for the most part only the 
Lord's poor, could work such wonders, who shall tell 
us what some other pastors and Churches might 
achieve for God, where large wealth and large num- 
bers, intelligence and culture, social influence and 
every other help and encouragement exist to assure 
a wide work and a grand result ! 

Pastor Harms drank in the missionary spirit in the 
secret place where God dwells. Prayer brought him 
very close to that heavenly altar where God's own 
fires eternally burn, and the angel at that altar 
touched with a live coal both his heart and his lips. 
The first impulse to his missionary heroism was 
found, not in the appeal of human need, but in the 
celestial spark which needed only a knowledge of 
facts to find ample fuel for a consuming flame. The 
man who knows not how to pray and how to lead 
his people to pray, may construct an organization, 
but he cannot put into it the motive power that 
moves its machinery and makes it mighty to effect 
results. Because Louis Harms prevailed with God, 
he also prevailed with men. He took the great facts 
about a world's need, to the mercy-seat, and held 
them up in the light of the Divine Presence, until in 
the mystic Shekinah fire they burned and glowed. 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 123 

Then he held them up before the eyes of men until 
he compelled others also to feel their awful force, 
and until indifference could no longer endure to con- 
front them, but was melted into zeal. 

Notwithstanding the poverty of his peasant parish, 
Harms from the first would allow no canvassing for 
funds, and modern methods of appeal and of raising 
money have always been repudiated upon principle. 
And yet money has been provided by methods and in 
measure surprising to worldly minds. The enter- 
prise that had such obscure and unpromising begin- 
nings, was scorned by the wise and great of this 
world ; it survived, however, not only the death of its 
founder, in 1865, but the schism in the Hanover 
Church thirteen years later, and the deposition of 
Theodore Harms in consequence of his loyalty to his 
conscience in refusing conformity to the customs of 
the State Church. He was followed by his people 
in his independent course, and thus was formed the 
nucleus of the Free Church of Hanover. These and 
many other causes combined, threatened to wreck the 
mission cause, but those simple Hermannsburghers 
have persisted in their devotion to the work of God, 
and the society is still sending forth its messengers 
to the region and shadow of death. 

God thus writes upon His shining scroll another 
name unknown to fame, as men rank greatness; 
but, like Christ's forerunner, great in the eyes of the 
Lord, and one to whom it was given to prepare His 
way among the people ! 

David Livingstone — Africa's Pioneer. 1813-1873. 

The hero of Blantyre furnishes another example of 
spiritual heredity, for his parents, however humble, 
were devout, and his father bequeathed to him both 
his thirst for knowledge and his spirit of enterprise. 
Though at ten working in the cotton factory, and 
there continuing for fourteen years, David was SO 



124 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

eager to learn that he studied Latin by night, and in 
his daily labour gathered up the smallest fragments of 
time, often less than a minute — that nothing be lost. 
" Dick's Philosophy of the Future State " kindled his 
missionary fervour, and then he got a medical train- 
ing, intending to go to China. War with Britain 
closed that door, but " Moffat's Appeal for the Dark 
Continent" opened another, and so in 1840, he sailed 
for Kuruman, little suspecting what a unique career 
was before him. 

Livingstone outranks all others as Africa's apostle. 
His life spans but sixty years. Converted at twenty, 
he was in heart and aim thenceforth a missionary ; 
perhaps no life since the Apostolic age has poured 
forth upon the feet of Jesus more of the costly oint- 
ment of consecrated service. 

He was a man of such singular force that Sir Bar- 
tie Frere thought that "any five years of his life 
might have established for him in any other occupa- 
tion, such a character, and raised for him such a for- 
tune, as none but the most energetic can realize." 
His last public utterance in Scotland gave in five 
short words the double secret of his life : ' ' Fear 
God and work hard." That explains his thirty 
thousand miles of travel and the unrivalled series of 
discoveries : Five lakes, rivers, falls that outrank 
Niagara, high ridges that flank Africa's central basin ; 
that motto accounts for the perseverance that searched 
into the geology and hydrography, the fauna and flora 
of the continent, and that fought the two great foes 
of man and beast — fever and tsetse — with such per- 
sistency, that he declared that these two words would 
be found at death graven on his heart. 

Force weds industry, if it does not beget it. Though 
his native abilities were mediocre and his early op- 
portunities meagre, like Carey, he could plod. Econ- 
omy of time and resolute patience were the steeds he 
yoked to his life-car, and so he made such progress 
as even genius does not often secure. What careful- 



THE NEW PIONEERS. 125 

ness in details is seen in that famous lined journal of 
eight hundred quarto pages, with its plain, neat 
writing. And what versatility is that, akin to genius, 
which makes it possible for one man in turn to mas- 
ter questions such as the desiccation of Africa, the 
utilization of her river highways, missionary organi- 
zation and Bible translation ! Book-making alone 
failed to arouse his enthusiasm ; it was a mere task, 
partly from the long exile that forbade contact or 
converse with white men. 

Livingstone's services to the race are too great for 
immediate recognition. What he was as a scientist 
and explorer, traveller, geographer, zoologist, botan- 
ist, physician, the future must measure. In accuracy 
of detail few have ever equalled him. His astronomi- 
cal observations, exact orientations, and manifold 
contributions to natural science in all its great de- 
partments, show a many-sided man. He could tell 
the Chamber of Commerce of a score of vegetable 
products entirely new to them; the geographical 
society decorated him with their gold medal, and 
three cities honoured him with their " freedom." 

As in all mighty men, the finest elements of his 
character crystallized about a strong will. If he 
failed, it meant new and more patient trial. " If I 
live," he said in 1866, " I must succeed in my under- 
taking; death alone will put a stop to my efforts." 
When half starved, his medicine-chest stolen, at the 
mercy of foes like a warrior without weapons, and 
thrice in one day barely escaping death — not one 
man in a million would have pushed forward as he 
did in the heart of Africa. When in 1872, Stanley 
urged his return with him to England, though a 
strange presentiment weighed upon him that he was 
on his last journey and would never get to its goal, he 
flinched not in his resolve but pressed on, praying 
that before he fell he might work out his purpose. 

He was a man whose great faith in God was the 
pole star of his life. He saw that great crises turn 



126 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

on trifles as great doors swing from small hinges, 
but that there was a Divine Workman who knew how 
much he could safely hang on such a hinge; and so 
he was wont to watch the seemingly trivial events 
that shape character and destiny. And on what ap- 
parent trifles Livingstone's career turned ! the chance 
reading of Dick, the appeal of Gutzlaff, the visit of 
Moffat, the friendly word of a director of the Lon- 
don Missionary Society. One text gave to his 
spiritual vision telescopic range and microscopic 
delicacy: " In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He 
shall direct thy paths." Under such guidance trial 
and trouble were God's angels, calamity was His 
storm signal ; and that nameless sorrow, which in his 
dear Mary's death smote him, only drew out once 
more his "Fiat, Domine, Voluntas Tua!" 

He was at heart simply a humble missionary. On 
that altar of service his whole self was laid, and bet- 
ter to know and meet Africa's wants, he entered that 
broader sphere that unconsciously made of the mis- 
sionary a general and statesman. He saw that the 
true plan for Africa's evangelization must be 
broad enough to take in the whole continent and its 
whole future. Hence he sought to explore and de- 
velop the resources of the country, devise facilities 
for travel and traffic, and abolish the awful curse of 
slavery. That he never lost sight of his original aim 
is plain from his own sage saying : ' ' the end of the 
geographical feat is the beginning of the true enter- 
prise." 

To further this ultimate end he was willing to go 
anywhere, provided it be only forward, and to do 
anything provided it were preparing the whole field 
for the harvest. His gauge of missionary success 
was, not so many converts per pound sterling, but 
the wide diffusion of godly principles — results which 
no statistics can exhibit. 

The hero of Blantyre was Conscience Incarnate. 
His watchword was duty. To keep his word and do 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 127 

his work faithfully was the double law of his life. 
But duty was softened by love, and lost all asperity. 
And it was one of God's gifts to him that his sense 
of humour was so keen. He enjoyed immensely the 
superstitious fright of the natives when they watched 
the figures, shown on the screen by the magic-lantern, 
mysteriously appear and disappear; and the Soko 
was to him so hideously ugly, that he could conceive 
no use for him save to " sit for a portrait of Satan." 

Livingstone's habitual indifference to worldly ap- 
plause and advantage was the unique trait in his 
character; he was in some respects the counterpart 
of that Soudan hero, of whom Mrs. Charles says, 
' ' Not that he tried to renounce the poor prizes of 
this world; like Joan of Arc, he simply did not 
value them." Money was to him no bait, and he 
hated to be lionized. He turned his back on the 
praise of men and would not even read what was 
written in his honour. The world's gold was tinsel, 
its glory a fading laurel: he was after what was 
better, and he got it. He belonged to no conven- 
tional society: his citizenship was in Heaven. And 
when in that little grass hut at Ilala he died, alone 
with God, in prayer for Africa, as Schmidt had before 
him — that close to his life was poetically and patheti- 
cally fitting, more in accord with all that went before 
it than if he had died in a palace amid fawning cour- 
tiers. But, as a martyr's grave drew Bishop Heber 
to Calcutta, that heart that is buried in Africa will 
yet be like a new Mecca to thousands of pilgrim 
saints. 

Livingstone's self-oblivion was sublime. The 
treasures and pleasures of Egypt were to him 
nothing if he might, like Moses, lead out God's 
oppressed people from under the slave yoke. For 
Africa he could spend his last penny, and his last 
drop of blood. Such was the man whom an intimate 
acquaintance pronounced the best man he ever knew, 
and whom history already crowns as Africa's best 



128 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

friend. His life was one grand sermon. The golden 
pen of action, held in the hand of resolve, wrote out 
its sentences in living letters on the eternal scroll, 
for all to read. Both by witness and suffering he 
ranks with the martyrs. His sacrifices were noble, 
though he declared he had never made any; yes, 
the man who had been soaked with drenching rains, 
had made his bed in damp grasses and his food out 
of roots, who had been forty times scorched in the 
furnace of fever, and buried his wife in Africa's 
bosom; even when on a sick bed, without human 
helper and in a horror of great darkness, neither 
talked of self-denial nor halted in his work for Christ. 

No wonder if his master passion was to abate and 
abolish all slavery and slave traffic. The horrors he 
saw defied description and made him feel that he was 
in hell. Everywhere he sought to rouse the dormant 
Christian conscience to the devilish atrocity of this 
crime; and, the memorial slab in the great Abbey, 
as is fitting, mutely repeats his memorable words : 

"All I can add in my loneliness, is, may Heaven's 
rich blessing come down on everyone — American, 
Englishman or Turk, — who will help to heal the open 
sore of the world !" 

Alexander Duff — Pioneer of Education in India. 
1806-1878. 

The remarkable student of St. Andrew's, from 
whom this Lectureship takes its name, combined in 
himself the courage of Knox, the force of Chalmers 
and the fire of Erskine. He was doubly a pioneer, 
for he was the first missionary of the Church of Scot- 
land to India, and he led the way in higher education 
among the Brahmans. He was almost equally con- 
spicuous as an orator, an organizer and an educator. 
Twice wrecked on his way to India, he saved his 
Bible from the sea — a fact regarded by him as sig- 
nificant and symbolic of his whole life-work. 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 129 

He struck out upon a new path. The corner-stone 
that he laid he himself cleft and shaped in a new 
quarry. His aim was to open up to the native Hin- 
dus, not only purely religious truth as such, but to 
introduce into the centre of the Orient the science 
and learning of the Occident. His plan was novel, 
and it signalized a new era in Indian missions. 

A new idea finds slow entrance, especially in the 
religious sphere, for all new coins are handled with sus- 
picion. Duff met with misrepresentation and oppo- 
sition, but his school stood the storm like a cedar of 
Lebanon, and fierce winds strengthened its roots and 
toughened its boughs. A few years sufficed for his 
work to win golden opinions, even from scholars and 
princes. After five years, illness drove him home, 
but after five more, he came back to find seven hun- 
dred pupils instead of the few with which he started : 
and when, in the year of the disruption, his lot was 
cast with the Free Church, and his college passed 
into other hands, he began anew, and organized on a 
new and ampler scale his whole educational and mis- 
sionary work. 

Dr. Duff ranks with Carey and Livingstone as one 
of the great missionary triad of the new age. He 
was, on Indian affairs and Christian missions, an 
authority. His service to the Church at home was as 
great as to the vast Oriental Empire beside the 
Ganges. In 1834, and again in 1849, he was com- 
pelled to return to Scotland, and, in 1863, to abandon 
India altogether; but such a man was anywhere and 
everywhere a missionary. He was another Peter, the 
Hermit, sounding the signal of the new crusade, urg- 
ing and leading God's people onward toward a nobler 
missionary consecration. He twice filled the Moder- 
ator's chair, but this was only a sign of his hold upon 
the Free Church, and no man since Paul has done 
more to fan and feed the fires of a holy enthusiasm 
for world-wide evangelism. 

If Duff owed his pious aptitudes to his godly 



130 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

parents, it was the joint influence of Chalmers and 
Inglis that afterward shaped his mind for work in 
India. Thomas Chalmers, in 1812, before the Dun- 
dee Missionary Society, had held up the inspired Word 
and the living herald as God's twin agency for 
spreading the gospel ; and, two years later, before the 
Scottish Propagation Society, had given the testi- 
mony of experience to the utility of missions; these 
sermons left impressions on young Duff that could 
not be effaced — impressions deepened by personal 
contact with that greatest of Scotia's sons, in the 
University. Then when, in 1825, Dr. Inglis made his 
fervent plea for workers abroad, Alexander Duff 
could no longer stay at home ; and God, who in Carey 
had given to Schwartz an " apostolic heir, " gave in 
Duff an heir to Carey. 

For the period of a whole generation he carried the 
assault against the citadel of oriental idolatry and 
superstition, instituting new educational methods for 
reaching the Brahmans, founding missions not only 
in India, but in Syria and the New Hebrides. But 
even this grand and complex achievement is perhaps 
surpassed in permanent value by his influence over 
the Church of Christ on both sides of the Atlantic. 
He made the very pulse of missions to beat quicker, 
shaping missionary effort and moving hundreds to 
go, as well as tens of thousands, to give. 

Never will his mission tour in the United States in 
1854 be forgotten, and when all those are dead who 
then heard him, his tracks will yet be left upon the 
history of American missions. His short career was 
like a prairie fire, sweeping hot and fast over the 
land. The enthusiasm he kindled was intense and 
glowing. At a time when material interests ab- 
sorbed attention, when the development of a new 
territory and the growth of a young Republic en- 
grossed thought, he widened the horizon of American 
disciples, and gave such impulse and impetus to work 
in other lands as no man since has ever equalled; 



THE NE W PIONEERS. 131 

the most ardent and fervent appeals for missions 
seem but as a faint echo of that clarion voice that 
shook the continent forty years ago ! 

Perhaps in the age to come, Scotia's great pioneer 
in India will be most thought of, like Raimund Lull, 
as a great missionary advocate; and yet he had 
few of the studied arts and self-conscious graces of 
the ideal orator or finished declaimer. He would 
not have been set up as a model of rhetoric or 
oratory ; if he had any code of rules, he broke the 
whole decalogue at once. His gestures, when he 
used any, were uncouth and grotesque. His muscles 
took rigidity from his mental tension. He twitched 
his forearm, hitched his shoulder, swung his long 
arm around, catching up and holding his coat-tails, 
while he left the other arm free to do the pounding 
necessary for emphasis. 

But his unique attitudes and motions fitted his 
unique oratory. For hours he held audiences en- 
tranced. Words flowed in a tumbling torrent — a tor- 
rent of fire. Facts stood up at his command in ranks 
and regiments. His courageous fancy dared the 
loftiest flights, and his contagious enthusiasm set his 
whole audience aflame. The expense in vital force 
was immense, and left behind it exhaustion to the 
point of peril ; and yet he did not roar or rant — it 
was not thunder, it was lightning. 

He was a master of climax. His long sentences 
have been likened to an auger or corkscrew, boring 
into the minds of men, at every turn and twist bear- 
ing down deeper, until at last, as when a cork is 
withdrawn, pent-up feeling finds vent in tears, in 
sighs, in shouts of applause. To take down such 
speeches was impossible. As well attempt to report 
a terrific storm at sea, with cyclone winds, mountain 
waves and waterspouts, varied with volcanic explo- 
sions, a glorious sunset, and concluding with an 
aurora borealis and shooting stars ! The reporters 
gave it up, and with heads resting on their hands, 



132 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

fixed eyes and mouth agape, resigned themselves to 
the charm of a speaker, who, instead of having to say- 
something had something to say. 

It might be invidious, among thousands of illustri- 
ous names, to assign to any one absolute pre-eminence. 
But in more respects than one, Alexander Duff 
shines in the firmament of missions as a star of the 
first magnitude. No missionary of modern times 
has laid on God's altar a choicer offering of genius. 
His mind was at once like Brougham's and like Can- 
ning's ; as a convex mirror it scattered light in every 
direction; as a concave mirror it gathered and con- 
centrated all the rays into one burning focal point. 
With a memory, a store of information and a versa- 
tility, equally marvellous, his sagacity was equal to his 
capacity, which is still more uncommon ; and it will 
take more than one-half century to dim the lustre of 
that name which has made so glorious the record of 
Scottish missions. 

It was fitting that this apostle of Christian educa- 
tion in India, one of the originators of the Calcutta 
Review, one of the founders, and for years the vir- 
tual governor, of the University of Calcutta, and the 
most eloquent missionary orator of this century, 
should leave as his last legacy to missions the corner- 
stone upon which this Lectureship is laid. May God 
make it ever a pillar of witness, in Duff's native land, 
to the vital need of missions in directing and develop- 
ing the life and power of the Church of Christ ! 



III. 

THE NEW APOSTOLATE OF WOMAN. 

A marked feature of the New Acts of the Apostles 
is the apostolate of woman. From the day when 
Gabriel announced to that Virgin of Bethlehem her 
destiny as the human mother of the Son of God, 
woman has taken a new rank in history. Mary of 
Magdala, to whom first He appeared after His resur- 
rection, was a forerunner of the thousands of her sex 
who should bear the good tidings of a risen Saviour. 
That outcast of Sychar who forgot her water-pot and 
hastened from the well to tell even the men of the 
city about the Messiah, forecast the myriad women 
who should forget themselves and all secular cares 
in the ministry to souls. 

These were prophecies of woman's work, and have 
been fulfilled in a startling manner in this new era. 
As the new age of missions moves toward the final 
goal, more and more does Christian womanhood 
come to the front. To-day, more than one-third of 
the entire force in the foreign field is composed of 
godly women. At home women's organizations, the 
outgrowth of the last quarter century, have had an 
increase so rapid, an influence so wide, and an im- 
pulse so forceful, that no other agency compares with 
them in value and virtue. They have created and 
scattered cheap and attractive leaflets on missions, 
stimulated consecration of home life, and trained up 
a new generation of self-devoted missionaries; and, 
amid all the variations of values, and crises in the 
money market, kept up a constant advance in the 
scale of gifts to the Lord. To the increased activity 
of these women who still follow the Master and 
minister to Him of their substance is mainly owing 

133 



134 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

the decided advance of missionary enterprise during 
the thirty years past. 

This theme demands a separate treatment, for the 
field it opens is too broad to be otherwise surveyed. 
The bare mention of the names, only, of the holy 
women, single and married, who have adorned the 
annals of modern missions, would require much 
space ; but to attempt even the briefest sketch of the 
heroines of the mission field would demand a 
volume. In some cases they have been wives and 
mothers, like those three grand women who in suc- 
cession shared the work of the devoted Judson in 
Burma, and one of whom laid the corner-stone of 
Siamese missions. Others have been single women 
like Fidelia Fiske in Persia, Eliza Agnew in Ceylon, 
Mary Whately in Cairo, Matilda Rankin in Mexico, 
Mary Graybell in India, Clara Cushman in China. 

Mary Moffat for a half century bore with her hus- 
band the yoke of toil and sacrifice among the Bech- 
uanas. Maria Gobat for forty-five years was Samuel 
Gobat's invaluable helper in Abyssinia and Malta, 
and finally in the bishopric of Jerusalem. Hannah 
Mullens, daughter of one noble missionary, was the 
wife of another, and has left her lasting footprints 
in Indian zenanas. Judith Grant spent but four years 
in Oroomiah, and was but twenty-five years old when 
she died, but her husband found that her life was the 
most powerful sermon ever preached in the land of 
Esther. The work of Mary Williams is scarcely less 
illustrious than that of the martyr of Erromanga. 
When Dorothy Jones at twenty-four years of age re- 
turned to England from the West Indies a childless 
widow, after a year of service among those degraded 
negroes, she had passed through a shipwreck whose 
frightful agonies had distorted her face beyond rec- 
ognition, yet she could only say, ' ' I have never once 
regretted engaging in mission work. " Anna Hinderer 
spent seventeen years by the side of her beloved 
David, in the Yoruba country, and so captivated the 



THE NEW APOSTOLATE OF WOMAN. 135 

women that they almost worshipped her, and so in- 
spired heroism in her converts that they dared tor- 
ture for Jesus' sake. Rebecca Wakefield spent but 
three years in Zanzibar, but her heroic fight with 
hardship and privation, and all the foes of a hostile 
climate and a pagan society, won for her the crown 
of a courage ''loftier than that of Joan of Arc." 
Sarah B. Capron not only took equal part in her hus- 
band's long service in India, but after his death 
trained scores of Bible women for zenana work, and 
has now given her maturest days, in the Bible Insti- 
tute at Chicago, to the training of candidates for mis- 
sion work, both at home and abroad. 

Out of all this illustrious company of women, in 
the field of missions, we take, almost at random, a 
few names as examples of this modern apostolate of 
woman. 



Hannah Catharine Lacroix Mullens 

Was born in India. The women of that vast penin- 
sula were therefore doubly her sisters, and nobly did 
she redeem the debt of sisterhood. As a girl of twelve 
she was already about her " Father's business," teach- 
ing native girls at Bhowanipore. At nineteen she be- 
came the wife of the Rev. Joseph Mullens, of the 
London Missionary Society in Calcutta, and from 
that time forth the very roots of her being struck 
deep into the work of a missionary, and absorbed all 
her energy. Her aid in her husband's study of Ben- 
gali, her work in the boarding-school for Hindu girls 
and in the Bible classes for native women, her sanctified 
pen, fit companion to her anointed tongue — all these 
are but hints of the varied and abundant service that 
made that life overflow with usefulness. She has 
sometimes been called the pioneer of zenana work; 
but, before her day, when Rev. John Fordyce was in 
India, the movement for penetrating the closed doors 
of Hindu homes had begun; yet Mrs. Mullens has an 



130 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

indisputable share in the glory of securing wider 
access to the exiled women of India, and of winning 
them to Christ. And when, after sixteen years as a 
missionary's wife, she was suddenly called up higher, 
at the early age of thirty-five, her last day had been 
spent in writing a book for the native women. 

Emily Chubbuck Judson. 

Long before "Fanny Forester" had met her hus- 
band, her zeal for missions had kindled over the 
memoir of Ann Haseltine Judson; and when, in 1845, 
he first met her and asked for the service of her grace- 
ful pen in preparing the memoir of the second Mrs. 
Judson, little thought either of them that the inter- 
view would lead to marriage. The few years of her 
experience in Burma were crowded with self-sacrific- 
ing service; and when in 1850 Dr. Judson's fast fail- 
ing health made a sea voyage needful, though she 
scarce knew how to breathe apart from him, and 
was herself in an apparent decline, she heroically 
stayed behind. Left with three children in her 
charge, and one of them her first-born infant of two 
years, and expecting within one month her second 
experience of maternity, she cheerfully bade her 
husband farewell. Three weeks after he sailed, she 
gave birth to her little " Charles," and soon after laid 
him in his grave, little knowing that his father had 
made the sea his sepulchre ten days before his infant 
son had departed; for there were four months of ter- 
rible suspense before she knew whether her husband 
was alive or dead. Yet she leaned hard on Jesus, and, 
with a patient heroism which, for pathetic interest, is 
unsurpassed in the annals of missionary life, ' ' endured 
as seeing Him who is invisible ! " 



THE NE W APOSTOLA TE OF WOMAN. 137 

Mary Chauner Williams. 

John Williams always said that, without his wife, 
he knew not what he would have done. Beside all 
her loving, conjugal and maternal ministries, her 
lofty spirit made radiant even the most menial offices 
of cook and housemaid, and withal she was a teacher. 
From her the women of Raiatea learned the arts of 
household life, while every such lesson became a 
channel for higher instruction. She searched out the 
aged, half nude and altogether despised and neglected, 
placed them under proper care, and led many of 
them to find a new staff for their old age and 
a new light at life's evening-time. The younger 
women she diligently taught and catechized until 
they were trained in the words of faith and good 
doctrine. Whether with her husband in his ''cir- 
cumnavigation of charity," or staying behind to care 
for interests that would suffer in their absence, she 
was the same unmurmuring servant and burden- 
bearer of the Lord : and, when seven of her babes 
were sleeping on the various isles of the Pacific, this 
handmaid of the Lord could still say, "Be it unto 
me, according to Thy word!" In poverty or peril, 
sickness or suffering, she was alike undaunted and 
undiscouraged. Awakened at midnight with the 
awful news of her husband's tragic death at Erro- 
manga, and while so prostrate with a paralysis of 
grief, that even friendly visits of sympathy were a tor- 
ture,, she admitted, among the first who entered that 
chamber of sorrow, Malietoa, the chief. He was him- 
self overwhelmed by the loss which put all Polynesia 
under its pall. Frantically he appealed to her not to 
kill herself by indulging grief, pleading with her to 
live for the sake of himself and his poor people, and 
crying out, "If you too are taken, O what shall we 
then do !" 



138 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 



Fidelia Fiske. 

Born the same year that Williams sailed for the 
South Seas, at twenty-seven years old, this noble 
woman went to reproduce in the land of Esther the 
system of instruction which at Holyoke, Massachu- 
setts, made Mary Lyon's school for girls so famous. 
There are various types of bravery, and none more 
heroic than such as this refined and delicate woman 
displayed, as for Christ's sake she dared the un- 
utterable filth and countless army of vermin encoun- 
tered in the huts of Oroomiah. 

When in 1843 she arrived in Persia, about forty 
schools had been opened on those plains, but for the 
most part reached only the boys ; and the girls' school, 
that Mrs. Grant had founded five years earlier, had 
dragged out a half dead existence. It was for this 
humble daughter of Shelbourne, niece of the Syrian 
missionary, Pliny Fiske, to become the real pioneer 
of woman's education in Persia. 

God laid it on her heart, to lift up out of the hor- 
rible pit and miry clay of unspeakable degradation, 
Nestorian womanhood; but to do it she must herself 
go down into the pit. She saw that to raise woman- 
hood, she must first lift girlhood to a higher level. 
So she began with the daughters, and courageously 
took measures to gather, into a family school, a few 
whom she would cleanse and clothe, feed and train. 
She sought for six girls with which to begin, and, 
while as yet she knew but one Syriac sentence^ she 
used that to beg parents to "give their daugh- 
ters." On the proposed day of opening, though 
fifteen day scholars offered, not one " boarder" was 
secured. Mar-Yohanan, however, came, leading two 
little girls of seven and ten; and to this first "gift of 
daughters" additions were slowly made until they 
numbered twenty-five — all she could then accommo- 
date. 

Thus, on foundations laid in prayers and wet with 



THE NEW APOSTOLATE OF WOMAN. 139 

tears, was reared that New Holyoke which has been 
to Persia a pearl of great price. For sixteen years 
she carried on her apostolic work, and when illness 
drove her home her one wish was to get back to the 
land of the magi. Cancer ate at her vitals until, not 
yet fifty years old, she died, in 1864. Yet, while 
thus weary and worn ; feeling this vulture gnawing at 
her heart, she not only pleaded ceaselessly for mis- 
sions, but actually took the principalship at Holyoke, 
Mass. , that with her dying hand she might still sow in 
youthful soil the seeds of missionary consecration. 

Of Fidelia Fiske the venerable secretary of the 
American Board has said: "In the structure and 
working of her whole nature she seemed to me the 
nearest approach I ever saw, in man or woman, to 
my ideal of our beloved Saviour as he appeared on 
earth." 

The work which began with the repulsive task of 
literally cleansing from filth and purging of vermin 
the very bodies of Persian girls, found its reward 
when, in the three years from 1844 to 1847, an outpour- 
ing so copious visited her seminary that it could be 
compared to nothing but the first Pentecost. All 
the girls above twelve years were converted, and 
many of them became missionaries in these Persian 
homes. The school was so obviously blessed in lift- 
ing women above the low level of the donkey, and 
ennobling that character which is the secret of all 
betterment of condition, that persecution only showed 
its worth and multiplied its supporters and so made 
necessary enlarged accommodations. During the 
closing days of Miss Fiske's stay in Oroomiah ninety- 
three converted women, in one meeting, greeted her 
as first-fruits of a life whose motto was, "Live for 
Christ." 

We may well thank God that, after for centuries 
being kept in the background, Christian womanhood 
is finding its true sphere of work, and wielding its 
golden sceptre of influence. Missions have shown 



140 THE NEW ACTS OE THE APOSTLES. 

the normal status of woman in the Church and in the 
world; and how closely her identification with her 
Redeemer is also linked with family life and social 
life, so that without her there can be no holy household 
nor reformed society. And her deep sense of infi- 
nite debt to Christ, not only for salvation, but for her 
redemption from her domestic and social thraldom, 
prompts her to undertake a mission to her degraded 
sisters in pagan, heathen and moslem lands, which 
can by no one but a Christian woman be done at all. 
Perhaps God suffered zenanas and harems to be 
locked against men so that women might the more 
feel His providential call for their service to their 
sex. 

Woman's work for woman no human gauge can 
measure. When Dr. Eli Smith of Syria was giving 
theological students his reasons why, ordinarily, 
missionaries should take a wife, he spoke not only of 
her contribution to her husband's home comforts, 
and her power to shelter him from moral suspicion, 
but he added with earnest emphasis, that the wife 
often does full as effective work in the foreign field 
as her husband, and that nothing is needed more, as 
a living lesson to these degraded and ignorant idol- 
aters and victims of vicious social surroundings, than 
the practical exhibition in the Christian woman her- 
self of what the religion of Christ does for her as 
daughter and sister, wife and mother. The common 
witness of the most heroic and successful missionaries 
is that the holy lives and tireless labours of devoted 
women have been indispensable to the highest results 
of missions. There was a time when woman was 
regarded as little more than man's helper, if not 
servant: but Paul wrote, "Help those women which 
laboured with us in the gospel," as though they were 
now leaders, and the men were to go to their help ! 



IV. 

THE NEW LESSONS. 

We must not leave this department of our great 
theme without looking back and asking what new 
lessons God would have us learn. And, first of all, 
this history of modern missions has been writing in 
large letters the lesson of the power of pious parent- 
age. 

Rev. J. Murray Mitchell, LL.D., has told how 
he once ascended to a high summit in India in search 
of the source of the Godivari River: how at last a 
spot was reached where so few were the drops that 
trickled from the rocks that they could for some sec- 
onds be held in the hollow of his hand ; and at that 
point one could in a few moments scoop out a new 
channel and turn the whole stream in a new direc- 
tion. From such an insignificant rill sprang one of 
India's noblest rivers. The little stream he saw, flow- 
ing down the slope and gradually broadening : then 
running eastward toward the Bay of Bengal, growing 
wider and deeper, gathering volume and momentum, 
until it became the secret of fertility to thousands of 
acres otherwise dry and desert. 

That river is a parable of human life. "The 
king's heart is in the hands of the Lord, and he turn- 
eth it whithersoever He will." He who learns the 
secret of the Lord, like Him, gets at the point in the 
stream, near the heart, where life's issues begin to 
flow outward, and where character, conduct, history 
and destiny wait for a shaping hand. Thackeray 
reminds us how we sow a thought and reap an act; 
sow an act, and reap a habit ; sow a habit, and reap a 
character; sow a character, and reap destiny. So 
then he who begins back where thought is forming, 
moulds the seed of that last, eternal harvest. 



142 THE NEW ACTS OF THE AFOSTLES. 

No lesson learned from these lives of the new apos- 
tles is more awfully solemn than this : They prove 
to us the power of spiritual ancestry — the faith which, 
first dwelling in a godly mother or grandmother, has 
given many a Timothy to the field of missions. The 
Samuels are to be accounted for by the Hannahs, 
and the pioneers of our Lord have been nur- 
tured by some Zacharias and Elisabeth. There may 
be no inheritance of godliness, but there is certainly a 
heritage of grace ; aptitudes are transmitted, if charac- 
ter is not. Let every father remember how from his 
loins may come a future Judson or Marsden, a Williams 
or Wilson, a Patteson or Hannington. Let every 
mother think how the child she bears and rears may 
be one of God's destined kings or queens, and that it 
is her hand that is to give shape to the plastic clay 
for one of God's chosen vessels. We have only to 
remember Ziegenbalg and Zinzendorf, Schwartz and 
Livingstone, Paton and Mills, Gulick and Scudder, 
Judson and Jessup, Duff and Hudson Taylor, to learn 
how much hangs on the holiness and heroism of the 
parents, if the children are to become holy and heroic. 

Another lesson taught is that of unrecognized great- 
ness. The new apostles, like the old, have not 
always been recognized, and have sometimes been 
rejected, by their own generation; and this lack of 
appreciation of God's anointed men and women by 
their contemporaries is one of the significant lessons 
of the New Acts of the Apostles. Carey bore the sneers 
of unhallowed wit ; Stoddard was charged with throw- 
ing away his fine culture amid Persian wilds, as Liv- 
ingstone was, with wasting great powers amid Afri- 
can forests. Williams falling at Erromanga, Han- 
nington shot on the borders of Uganda, Mackay 
dying yet in youth among the cruel savages of 
Mwanga's realm, Riggs retiring into scholarly seclu- 
sion at the Golden Horn, and three peerless women 
following Judson to Burma— to many all this is 
sheer waste ; but history reverses many of our ver- 



THE NEW LESSONS. 143 

diets, and the judgment-seat of Christ will reverse 
many more. 

It was not in vain that Morrison wore the queue 
and burned the midnight lamp at Canton, that 
Wilder " buried himself " for thirty years in India, 
that Carey left Leicester for Serampore, that Hunt 
exiled himself at the Fiji group, that Patteson fell at 
Nackapu, that McAll spent his last twenty years in 
tireless labours amid the commune, in Paris. 

Again, we are taught obedience to the will of God. 
The plan of God is the only ultimately successful 
scheme; and to find out that plan and fall into out- 
place in it, is to come into our true orbit round the 
Sun of the universe — to enter into, to become part of, 
a system of harmony in which all things work 
together for good. There, all things are ours, even 
death as well as life, things present as well as things 
to come — for we are Christ's, and Christ is God's. 
Life's length is not measured by its years, but its 
yearnings, its prayers, its measure of unity with God 
and conformity to His purpose. All life is long if 
it reaches the goal God means for it. 

The new apostles have been men and women who 
have sought to hear God's voice and heed divine 
visions, and move along the lines laid down in the 
word of God — who have waited God's time and 
wrought in God's way. The founder of the China 
Inland Mission heard a voice plainly saying to him, 
" I am going to open central and inland China to the 
gospel, and will use you if you are ready to come 
into My plan;" and from that day he has known no 
will, but that will. God cares not for the many, but 
He uses the few who are wholly His — who in that 
calling wherein they are found abide with God; 
whose eyes are unto His, glad to be guided by His 
eye, and needing not bit and bridle and rein and whip 
to compel them to obey His will, like the dumb 
horse or stubborn mule. He who is content to be 
drained of selfishness, to lose himself in God, as con- 



144 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

tent to die as to live, if death means life to others; 
ready, like Ignatius, to be ground between teeth of 
lions to make bread for God's people — he is the man 
upon whom the Spirit comes, and with whom, as was 
written of Gideon, He " clothes Himself, " as a warrior 
with his coat of armour. 

Yes, the inner secret of service is the sharing of 
God's Spirit, and so of His power. Herbert Spencer 
was right, for " by no political alchemy can we get 
golden conduct out of leaden instincts." Influence 
will not be grandly noble when character is basely 
ignoble, and all efforts to make up in culture for 
what the soul lacks in renewed nature, will be worse 
than waste. The builder should not construct orna- 
ment, but ornament construction ; and he who wants 
beauty of character needs only to see that there is 
something solidly built and firmly based, on which 
to have beauty appear. Otherwise the best appear- 
ances are like frost-work on the window-pane that 
melts away before the sunbeam. 

Again, what a lesson may be learned from the 
diversity of spheres that have furnished God's work- 
men. Coleridge at Christ's hospital felt ambitious to 
be a shoemaker's apprentice, because from this, more 
than any other handicraft, eminent men have gone 
forth to serve the world. Jesus Christ was a car- 
penter at Nazareth, and His life as a mechanic was a 
prophecy of the host of those who from the workshop 
of the common tradesman would go forth into fields 
of wide usefulness and heroic service. Any place 
may furnish training and any tool may become, like 
Moses' rod, God's means to work His signs. The 
heart needs only to be God's — then " what is that in 
thine hand?" A shepherd's crook, a carpenter's ham- 
mer, a mason's trowel, a shoemaker's awl, or the 
needle of Dorcas, — these God can use as well as the 
tongue of the orator or the pen of the ready writer, 
to glorify Him. 



Part III. 
THE NEW VISIONS AND VOICES 



THE LEADING VOICE— THE VOICE OF 
THE MASTER. 

"After this, I looked, and behold a door was 
opened in heaven ; and I heard a voice, as it were of 
a trumpet, talking with me." — Revelation, iv. i. 

The Apostolic age was both pictorial and vocal: it 
was an age of visions and voices of God. A door 
was opened in heaven. Such sights the eye beheld, 
and such sounds the ear heard, as left no doubt with 
saints, >and sometimes with sinners, that God was in 
close touch with man. As through a rent veil 
flashed the hidden glory ; and, whether the sound was 
that of a trumpet, or of the "still small voice," it 
was awe-inspiring and soul-subduing. The gospel 
message itself was the voice of God, and, as was fit- 
ting, it was emphasized and accentuated by other 
utterances clearly divine. Both by His providence 
and by His Spirit He spake so often, so loudly, that 
the whole age of the Apostles echoed with these 
divine voices. In effect the visions were voices, for 
as messengers of God they were vocal, only that 
their language entered the city of Mansoul through 
eyegate rather than eargate. 

Not even in the time of the ancient Theophanies 
has God more manifestly appeared and spoken to 
men. Nor were these visions and voices vain. They 
mark, in the history of missions, turning points, both 
critical and pivotal ; hinges whereon the golden gates 
of the kingdom hung and swung. Nor were they 
meant for that age only. A mere glance at the Acts 
of the Apostles shows that what God taught the 
early Church was a lesson for all time: He was giv- 
ing signs and signals for all ages. To a devout 
reader this book records and reproduces what prim- 
itive disciples saw and heard, somewhat as the photo- 



148 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

graph and phonograph may yet serve future genera- 
tions. 

One mark of the close analogy between the age of 
modern missions and that of the Apostolic, is found 
in the new visions and voices of God, which though 
less characterized by the purely miraculous or super- 
natural element are no less unmistakable in their 
purpose and purport. Every page of these new 
chapters is thus illustrated and explained by the 
Divine Teacher; and the fact is both curious and 
significant that the main lessons, thus taught the 
Church in our day, follow the same lines as those of 
that first century. The Heavenly Schoolmaster, like 
the earthly, finds needful to use repetition ior the 
sake of impression; and so, after the long interval 
of centuries, we are still in God's school, learning the 
same old lessons from the same old text-book, only 
it is a new edition with notes by the Author, illu- 
mined by new illustrations, its teaching enforced and 
vivified by new arguments and appeals. 

The first voice we hear in the Acts of the Apostles 
is that of the Lord Jesus Himself. His words have a 
double value ; as His last words before He was taken 
up, they form the sum and substance of all His pre- 
vious teaching; and as His first words before the new 
age of missions opens, they, like a table of contents, 
give the sum and substance of the history that is to 
follow. All other voices and visions found in this 
book are meant to fix in the minds of believers what 
they saw and heard when the Lord last appeared 
unto them before His ascension, — to echo, explain, 
amplify, illustrate His great commission. Because 
every word that He then spake is a little world full 
of meaning, let us write His farewell message in large 
letters : 

"DEPART NOT FROM JERUSALEM, 

BUT WAIT FOR THE PROMISE OF THE FATHER 
WHICH YE HAVE HEARD OF ME; 



THE VOICE OF THE MASTER. 149 

FOR JOHN TRULY BAPTIZED WITH WATER, * 

BUT YE SHALL BE BAPTIZED WITH THE HOLY GHOST, 

NOT MANY DAYS HENCE. 
YE SHALL RECEIVE THE POWER OF THE HOLY GHOST 

COMING UPON YOU, 
AND YE SHALL BE WITNESSES UNTO ME 
BOTH IN JERUSALEM AND IN ALL JUDEA, 

AND IN SAMARIA, 
AND UNTO THE UTTERMOST PART OF THE EARTH." 

Here then is the loud and leading voice of the 
Apostolic age, and how majestic and commanding! 
In this final word of our ascending Lord three things 
stand out conspicuous like lofty peaks against the 
horizon : 

First, the work of witness is the duty of the 
whole Church. Second, the field of witness is the 
territory of the whole world. Third, the force of 
witness is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. 

Again we affirm it, this farew r ell message is all- 
comprehensive. From it was omitted nothing vital 
to the Church's great mission ; to it nothing has been, 
or can be, added. The keynote is struck, and the 
divine melody is sung; all that follows is but a varia- 
tion upon this theme, the harmony which only makes 
more conspicuous the melody. The chapters that 
succeed add only emphasis to this first chapter, and 
so it will be of the unwritten records yet to follow ; 
every failure or success in our mission work only 
gives fresh force, heavier stress, to this great message 
of the departing Master. 

Immediately, with but ten days of interval, the 
farewell word of the Lord, and the promise of the 
Father, find fulfilment in the outpouring of the 
Spirit. Pentecost was both a vision and a voice, 
emphasizing and confirming what Jesus had said. 

The work of witness now began. Hundreds of 
tongues, like a chorus of silver trumpets of jubilee, 
proclaimed in unison the acceptable year of the Lord; 



150 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

and, although at times this work has suffered con- 
traction through unbelief and worldliness, it has 
never entirely ceased, nor will it, until the end of the 
age. 

The field of witness now began to be first seen in 
its true length and breadth. Peter officially said, 
" The promise is unto you and unto your children, 
and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord 
our God shall call." And this he spake not of him- 
self; he had little conception of the meaning of his 
own words, as subsequent events prove. It was the 
voice of the Spirit, repeating and enlarging the cove- 
nant promises of a former dispensation; repeating 
them for the sake of Jewish believers; enlarging 
them for the sake of the gentiles, who had hitherto 
been aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and 
strangers from the covenants of promise. Christ 
had made the field of witness to embrace the utter- 
most part of the earth ; and so now the Spirit leads 
Peter, still fettered with Jewish exclusiveness, to 
add, "and to as many as are afar off! " The golden 
links of prophecy connect the Hebrew race with a 
larger grace, that is to touch the whole family of 
man. And so this same Peter was led, a little later, 
to say to the unbelieving Jews, " Repent ye, there- 
fore, and be converted, so that times of refreshing 
may come from the presence of the Lord." The 
reclamation and restoration of God's elect people is 
a condition, preliminary and preparatory, to that last 
great time of refreshing which is to come upon all 
flesh. In Abraham's " seed shall all the kindreds of 
the earth be blessed ! " but that promise made to the 
father of the faithful will be fulfilled only when 
Abraham's seed, receiving the Messiah they despised 
and rejected, become witnesses to the nations. And 
so Paul adds his testimony to Peter's: " Now, if the 
fall of them be the enriching of the world, and their 
diminishing the enriching of the gentiles, how much 
more their fulness! For, if their rejection be the 



THE VOICE OF THE MASTER. 151 

reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of 
them be but life from the dead." — Romans, xi. 12-14. 

The field of witness was not only now first seen 
to be the world, but in a peculiar way its occupation 
began. From every quarter of the inhabited globe 
had gathered those representatives who, on the day 
of Pentecost, received the word and the blessing; and 
going back to their far-off and widely separated 
abodes they naturally became witnesses unto the 
peoples among whom they dwelt. The sheaf of 
first-fruits thus laid on that Pentecostal altar, sup- 
plied seed for the sower to scatter in regions beyond. 

The power of witness was now for the first time 
revealed in its fulness. Pentecost emphasized our 
Lord's words by bringing the promised baptism, the 
chrism of power, the nameless charm and virtue 
which make all witness effective. Then began the 
great endowment and enduement, so indescribable 
yet indispensable; through human tongues the Holy 
Spirit spake, with a demonstration of truth far be- 
yond all the demonstration of logic, making simple 
witness to Christ to accomplish what all the wisdom 
of the schools has never been able to effect. And, 
from that day onward the secret of power to testify 
for God, to convince and persuade men, has been the 
same, namely, to be filled with the Holy Ghost. 

We have thus seen that the first two chapters of 
the Acts furnish the key, not only to this book, but 
to all missionary history. Our Lord's last words 
describe the work of witness, define the field of witness, 
and reveal the force of witness; and the third per- 
son of the Trinity adds His confirmation of the word of 
the Lord Jesus, by leading disciples to begin the work, 
to enter the field, and to use the power. Where God 
thus teaches three lessons, and stamps them as of 
such supreme importance, it must be our duty to 
learn them thoroughly. We therefore tarry to study 
them with more care and closeness of application. 



II. 

THE CALL TO ALL DISCIPLES. 

This first lesson taught in the Acts of the Apos- 
tles, that the work of witness belongs to the zvhole 
Church, dominates the book; so emphatically, so 
repeatedly enforced, that it must constitute one, if 
not the only, design of its records. 

Those who believed were from the first sent forth 
as witnesses. It is of the very genius of Christianity 
that it implies and compels testimony; " I believed 
and therefore have I spoken; we also believe and 
therefore speak." This is not only the logic of mis- 
sions; it is the logic of spiritual life. The Church 
of God is an army, always to be mobilized in readi- 
ness for action, — more than this, always in action. 
Livingstone said, ''The spirit of missions is the 
Spirit of our Master; the very genius of our religion. 
A diffusive philanthropy is Christianity itself. It 
requires perpetual propagation to attest its genuine- 
ness." 

How far this conception of a witnessing Church is 
the controlling law in the structure of the Acts of 
the Apostles, only careful search will show. 

The introduction to this book refers to that "forty 
days" of communion between the risen Lord and 
His disciples, the object and result of which were 
fourfold : 

First, to leave in them no doubt of the fact of His 
resurrection; secondly, to give them instruction 
touching the Kingdom of God; thirdly, to prepare 
them for His unseen presence and guidance ; fourthly, 
to inspire them with the true Spirit of missions. 

Then, as soon as the Spirit was outpoured, we 
find the bold outlines of early Church history con- 
fronting us, the record of active, aggressive testi- 



THE CALL TO ALL D1SCLPLES. 153 

mony, pushing its lines from Jerusalem into all 
Judea, then into Samaria, and so farther and farther 
into the remotest regions beyond. 

i. The witnessing Church at Jerusalem and Judea. 
Chapter i. 13 to vii. 

Ten days of prayer are followed by the Pentecostal 
enduement for service, persecution by Pharisees and 
Sadducees, Stephen's martyrdom, and the dispersion 
of disciples; the voluntary community of goods, 
division of work, and the institution of the diac- 
onate. 

2. The witnessing Church in Samaria. Chapter viii. 

Under Philip, the evangelist-deacon, Samaria re- 
ceives a blessing, essentially a repetition of the Pen- 
tecost at Jerusalem. 

3. The witnessing Church moving toward the 
uttermost part of the earth. Chapter ix. to the close. 

The conversion of the eunuch represents evangel- 
ism begun in Ethiopia; and that of Saul of Tarsus, 
the chosen apostle to the gentiles, raises up the 
greatest evangelist the world has ever seen, whose 
especial passion it is to reach the regions beyond. 
Among the Romans at Cesarea, then among the 
Greeks at Antioch and at Ephesus, Pentecostal bless- 
ings descend with marvellous signs and wonders; 
and the first gentile Church formed at Antioch 
becomes the starting point for foreign missions. 
Paul's three mission tours, with their ever widening 
circles, are outlined, and the book closes with the 
Cilician apostle teaching and preaching at Rome, the 
third great centre of Christianity. 

In the latter part of the Acts, Paul comes to the 
front, while Peter disappears entirely. The reason 
is plain. The obvious object of the bock is to trace 
the beginnings of missions to the nations of the wide 
world. To Peter it was given to unlock the door of 
faith, first to Jews and then to gentiles; then he goes 
to the dispersion or scattered tribes of Israel; and 
Paul, whose commission is to the nations at large, 



154 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

the typical world-missionary, naturally becomes the 
main actor in the scene. 

Attention has already been called to the fact, that 
Luke treats both the gospel which he wrote and this 
book of which he is the declared author, as parts of 
one connected, continuous, complete narrative. A 
careful study will show the links of unity. The pur- 
pose of the Spirit, in these two sketches, is to outline 
gospel history from its infancy in its humble Judean 
cradle to its mature growth as a world-wide power ; 
to trace the seed of the kingdom, first sown on Syrian 
soil, then scattered widely beside all waters and 
borne upon the various streams of civilization to the 
heart of the heathen world. 

Thus, from first to last, this combined narrative is 
the story of missions. In the gospel our Lord offers 
the good news to the Jews; and then seeing their 
actual rejection of Him and foreseeing their con- 
tinued refusal of His message, He commands and 
commissions His disciples to go everywhere and wit- 
ness to every creature. In the Acts we see the com- 
mission and command actually carried out; the 
preaching of the gospel to the Jews by both Peter 
and Paul, and its repeated rejection by them; with 
its subsequent and consequent proclamation to man- 
kind as such at the great centres of population. 

The Gospel according to Luke opens with Christ's 
incarnation, and closes with His resurrection and 
ascension. The promise of enduement with power 
" not many days hence," is the last link left to con- 
nect with the after narrative. In the Pentecostal 
fires the new links are forged for this chain of events, 
and so the Acts of the Apostles joins on to the gos- 
pel, beginning with the natal day of the Church at 
Pentecost and ending with Paul's work at Rome. 

Now, confining our gaze to the Acts, as a whole, 
we observe at least ten marked features, all indicat- 
ing the mission, committed to the whole Church, of 
a world-wide witness. 



THE CALL TO ALL DISCIPLES. 155 

i. The waiting for the Holy Spirit. The endue- 
ment from on high was also an endowment, fitting 
for the work of witness ; the type of other effusions 
which followed and which indicated that not only 
Jewish converts but gentile believers also were to be 
thus endued and endowed. 

2. The substance of this witness was Christ cruci- 
fied, risen, exalted and glorified, as the only Saviour ; 
pointed prominence being given to the Old Testa- 
ment prophecies and the exact correspondence of 
New Testament history ; and to that glorious second 
Coming of our Lord which is to put the capstone 
upon all prophecy and history. The book is full of 
Christ, Messiah foretold, Saviour revealed. 

3. The resolute persistence of Christ's witnesses in 
face of organized opposition. The Jews led by 
Sanhedric rulers, the gentiles led by such as the 
Ephesian Demetrius, drive disciples to face, if not 
to fight, that worst oj all wild beasts, the mob. 
Persecution bares her red right arm and whets her 
cruel sword, warning disciples what price they must 
pay for free speech. But they " cannot but speak 
the things which they have seen and heard." And 
so this story of the Acts becomes the first book of 
Christ's martyrs. Stephen's angel smile shines amid 
a hail of stones. James' head drops under the axe 
of Herod Agrippa. Peter, kept for a like fate by 
the same despot, is loosed from prison, at the beck 
of One before whom even iron fetters fall and iron 
gates open of their own accord. Yet neither can 
bribe nor force stop the mouth of Christ's witnesses. 
God is obeyed and man is defied. 

4. Church life itself is moulded by this mission to 
mankind. Believers so commonly accept this work of 
witness that personal and private interests are merged 
into this wider and nobler service. The community 
of privilege and responsibility is emphasized by a 
more remarkable community of goods. With an 
unselfishness that has no other example in history, 



156 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

believers part with worldly possessions and pour the 
proceeds into a common fund, to be distributed 
according to the wants of each and all. Not only 
duties but burdens are shared alike. 

5. The witnesses disperse more and more widely. 
Those who were sojourners in Jerusalem went back 
to their separate abodes with the new message of 
life burned into their souls by the Spirit's fire, and 
burning on their tongues ; and so light began to shine 
in the darkness. If we may trust tradition, the 
eunuch whom Philip guided to the blood of the Lamb 
and the water of baptism, founded the Church of 
Alexandria and baptized his own queen. The con- 
verted blasphemer from Tarsus, swept over a wider 
and wider arc, until his mission tours touched not 
only Ephesus, Athens, Corinth and Rome, but possi- 
bly Spain and Britain. 

6. The open secrets of Apostolic success may be 
read upon every page of this^hort story. Apostolic 
activity moves toward its goal of world-wide missions 
with so rapid strides, that in one generation it reaches 
the remotest parts; yet it treads no strange road. 
All along the way God's lights are hung, that he who 
will may follow. How simple the methods of work! 
Childlike faith in the promise of God and the power 
of His word and Spirit; believing and united prayer 
that laughs at the giant Anakim with their chariots 
of iron, and cares not for high walls and strong gates, 
and foes many and mighty; a heroic obedience that 
asks only for " marching orders," and then dares all 
obstacles and opposers, moving on into the " valley 
of death," to "do and die " — such are the simple clew 
to the whole maze and mystery of Apostolic missions. 

7. The unseen divine presence pervades the whole 
history. To Christ's last command was closely 
linked a last promise, " Lo, I am with you all the 
days, even to the end of the age." This book is the 
record of the fulfilment of that promise. Wonder- 
working miraculous signs, divine interpositions, so 



THE CALL TO ALL DLSCLPLES. 157 

abound that the uncommon becomes common, and 
the supernatural seems no more unnatural. As we 
cross the threshold of the story we meet the tongues 
of flame that tell the power of God; then each chap- 
ter is a new chamber of marvels. The healing of the 
lame man, of the divining damsel, of Eneas at 
Lydda; the raising of dead Dorcas; the healing vir- 
tue that invests the body of Paul and the shadow of 
Peter; the prison doors thrice opened, twice by the 
angel, once by the earthquake as God's angel ; mir- 
acles of judgment as well as deliverance ; Elymas be- 
ing blinded, and Ananias, Sapphira and Herod struck 
dead; — at every step we tread on enchanted ground. 

8. The power of the gospel is everywhere conspic- 
uous. Sinners are converted sometimes as in 
masses; saints are edified and educated, and the 
body of Christ grows strong. Even those who are 
neither converted nor convicted seem compelled to 
hear and to make some decision ; they may not bow 
to Christ, but they cannot maintain the stolid apathy 
of indifference. Stephen's stoners are cut to the 
heart, for his words are swords ; Felix says ' ' go thy 
way," but he "trembles;" Agrippa will not yield 
but is "almost persuaded." Those who "gnashed 
on him with their teeth " " could not resist the wis- 
dom and the spirit with which " the first martyr 
spake; and Saul, who stood by consenting to their 
deed, never forgot that shining face which prepared 
him for the glory that smote him near Damascus! 

9. This is the book of the Holy Spirit. Throughout, 
there runs the stream of His subtle, unseen, mysteri- 
ous, resistless working. Omniscience, omnipotence, 
omnipresence, find here the field for their display, 
promising and prophesying similar results, whenever 
and wherever like conditions obtain. Here God 
shows that in grace as in nature He has chosen chan- 
nels for His power and energy, and if those channels 
are not obstructed, He who is the same 3^esterday 
and to-day and forever, will still work wonders. 



158 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

10. No undue emphasis is here laid on numerical 
results or apparent success. In the story of primi- 
tive missions the whole stress is upon obedience, not 
consequence, not on succeeding but on serving. The 
work is God's, the instrumentality only is man's; the 
whole responsibility is therefore with the Master 
Workman, and whether success or failure, defeat or 
triumph, be the apparent outcome, all is well. 

No lesson taught in these chapters is more sublime, 
or more needful than this. In every age disciples 
need to learn it anew. So long as our eyes are daz- 
zled by the glittering trophies of victory, and our 
hearts depressed by seeming disaster, we shall be in a 
state of chronic worry. Our joy and hope, our cour- 
age and confidence, will be like the waves of the sea, 
tossed up and down by every change of wind, and 
driven to and fro by every turn of tide. The work 
of missions is God's work. Man did not plan it, can- 
not carry it on, cannot make it a success. As Dr. 
McLaren says, " the results are so poor as to show 
that the treasure is in an earthen vessel ; so rich as 
to prove that in the earthen vessel is a heavenly 
treasure." We are therefore simply to do our duty, 
and with a holy abandonment, a sublime " careless- 
ness," cast ourselves and trust our work upon Him 
whose we are and whom we serve. 

vSome of these ten principal features of this book 
will receive more attention further on; but at this 
point we have sought to look at them as at the feat- 
ures of one face, striking for the unity and harmony 
of their combination and impression. And they serve 
to characterize the Acts of the Apostles as the 
typical history of the witnessing Church during its 
first generation, wherein God teaches the philosophy 
of missions by a historical example. 

This book of the Acts teaches that in this witness 
every believer is to take part. A duty is involved 
from whose obligation no disciple is excepted; a 
privilege from whose enjoyment and enrichment no 



THE CALL TO ALL DLSCLPLES. 159 

believer is excluded. The opening miracle of Pente- 
cost writes this lesson in letters of fire upon the door- 
way of this historic record, for it brought that two- 
fold gift of converting and anointing grace, and the 
anointing came upon all that little company, even 
upon the women. The gift of tongues was both a 
sign to the unbelievers and a signal to believers. 
What is the tongue but the great instrument of 
testimony? The message was spoken with many 
tongues to teach disciples that their witness was to 
reach every nation, whatever its language ; and pos- 
sibly that gift of tongues fitted them for such wit- 
ness, without the tedious mastery of foreign speech. 
And the tongues were of fire to remind them that 
faithful testimony was to be attended by a new force, 
an energy not of man but of God. 

So plainly is the tongue of every disciple thus set 
apart for testimony, that it is a fact beyond explana- 
tion that the Church should ever have lost sight of 
God's purpose, that witnessing shall be the preroga- 
tive of all believers; and it is one of the startling 
proofs of a rapid decline from a primitive piety, that 
so few modern disciples feel the burden of personal 
responsibility for souls. 

The study of words reveals ethics in language. 
Error and truth find crystallization in current forms 
of speech, and so this habitual carelessness that shifts 
the work of soul-saving upon other shoulders has 
become coined into popular phrases, fixed forms of 
expression. 

For instance, let us look closely at that dangerous 
term, "division of labour." It is often said that the 
Acts of the Apostles encourages and enjoins this 
principle; and the institution of the diaconate is 
cited to prove it, because the Church was bidden to 
look out honest men to serve tables, leaving the 
Apostles free to give themselves to prayer and to the 
ministry of the word. 

Let us beware of too broad an induction from so 



ICO THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

narrow a basis of particulars. There is a great gulf 
of difference and distinction between division of 
labour and distribution of labour. Division hints at 
partition and separation ; distribution implies only a 
special assignment or allotment of work. Expedi- 
ency and convenience may set apart some to a par- 
ticular service, in order to free them from all entan- 
glements, and to assure a more competent and 
thorough attention to that branch of work; but it 
is quite another matter to build up a dividing wall, 
or draw even a dividing line, which practically parts 
disciples, and which they come to think it improper 
to cross. Service is to be so distributed, that each may 
have his own sphere and work, and no department 
be overcrowded or under-supplied. But never, during 
Apostolic days, was there found asserted in the 
Church of Christ any law of monopoly, clerical caste, 
or exclusive right. Whatever such notions or 
customs have since grown up, "from the beginning 
it was not so." All believers had, and exercised, an 
inalienable and undisputed right to proclaim Christ 
to lost men. Experience of grace was the sufficient 
warrant for witness to grace ; and the only limits to 
such witness were those of ability, opportunity and 
consecration. 

The appointment of deacons was wise and needful. 
Material and temporal wants demanded supply, and 
such cares must not collide and conflict with purely 
spiritual offices and ministries; and, because provision 
for God's poor was a form of service to Him, it must 
be in charge of men, not only of honest report and 
of wisdom, but full of the Holy Spirit. 

The same need still exists. The ministers and mis- 
sionaries to whom is committed as their one absorbing 
trust, the curacy of souls, must not be hindered and 
hampered by the stern necessity of ministering to the 
temporal needs of their own and of other families. 
There is a " business side" of the Lord's work which 
calls for men with a practical talent for finance and 



THE CALL TO ALL DLSCLPLES. 161 

business. Some who are not called to give them- 
selves wholly to prayer and the ministry of the word, 
may unshackle those who are, relieving them of need- 
less tax on time and strength, by taking care of poor 
saints, and by providing a sound financial basis and 
bottom for evangelistic and spiritual work. 

How often a noble structure of missions has come 
to wreck and ruin from dry rot in its timbers, 
because there has been no one to look after supplies ! 
The war is God's, but it needs money and materiel. 
Brave Captain Gardiner, at Tierra del Fuego, led a 
little band of seven against Satan's seat in Patagonia, 
but had to turn back, and died of starvation at the 
very gates of his stronghold, and in the very crisis 
of the assault, because of lack of the necessities of 
life. Had some well organized body of men and 
women at home kept up the "line of communica- 
tion " between the base of operations and the source 
of supplies, Allen Gardiner might not have fallen at 
Spaniards' Harbour in 185 1, and the victory might 
not have been postponed for half a century ! 

Let it be noted, however, that the appointment of 
the seven deacons to serve tables, did not shut them 
out from preaching or even baptizing, as the records 
of both Stephen and Philip clearly show. Distribu- 
tion of labour did not divide disciples, nor debar any 
from taking part in evangelizing. Over the doors of 
the early Church the Master wrote in letters so large 
that he who runneth may read at a cursory glance, 
"Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to 
every creature." The command was and is to all 
disciples. Those who cannot go in person, must go 
in the person of others who can ; and with no less 
self-denial, prayer, self-offering, must they who 
tarry by the stuff support those who go to the battle, 
than if they themselves went to the field. Only so 
will they share alike in the work and the reward. 
Let this one law of service be framed into church- 
life, and all will be alike missionaries. 



162 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

In that Samarian Pentecost, God laid new empha- 
sis upon the truth already taught, that the commission 
of disciples was not limited by priestly lines nor con- 
fined within narrow channels. The sharp distinction 
between priests and people, found in the days of 
Judaism, disappears in the Christian Church; the 
barriers were down between the court of the gentiles 
and the court of Israel, and the middle walls of parti- 
tion between the court of Israel and the court of the 
priests perished with the old Temple, and has no place 
in the Church of Christ. Nay, the veil is rent between 
the Holy Place and the Holiest of all, and all believers 
approach alike without hindrance or hesitation to the 
mercy-seat. What means all this if not a plain asser- 
tion of a certain equality of right, dignity and privi- 
lege? No assault is designed, in the calm recording of 
these convictions, upon the views or practices of fel- 
low-disciples; but candour and loyalty to truth demand 
of us, that as honest students of this great missionary 
charter of the Church, we shall accept and defend its 
plain teachings. If we are in earnest to perfect the 
missionary methods of our own era, we must with open 
eyes see our present defects, and own our departures 
from the primitive standard. The prime condition 
of all spiritual progress is a candid mind. That a 
custom exists is no warrant for its right to exist; it 
is at best but a presumption in its favour. As Cyprian 
said, " Consuetudo vetustas erroris," — Custom may 
be only the antiquity of error. And if in the Church 
any notions or practices have found root and growth 
which are not of God's planting, and whose fruit is 
not of godly savour, however marked by old age, the 
sooner we cut them down and extirpate them, root 
and branch, the better. And surely whatever ham- 
pers or hinders all believers from bearing witness for 
the gospel, must find sanction outside of the Acts. 

God used persecution to reveal the true value and 
need of what is somewhat invidiously called, " Lay- 
agency," in the world-wide work. The Spirit records 



THE CALL TO ALL DLSCLPLES. 103 

with marked particularity how in this wide scatter- 
ing of disciples the Apostles were excepted ; so that 
the fact might be more emphatic that it was the 
common body of believers who being scattered 
abroad went everywhere preaching the word. God 
may yet use persecution to repeat the same lesson, 
that, as there is to be no distinction among those who 
need the gospel, so we are to deny to no believer the 
prerogative, which is a sort of birthright, of telling 
the gospel story as best he can. It needs all believ- 
ers to reach all unbelievers. The silver trumpet 
which peals out God's year of jubilee is wrought of 
the whole Church, every believer adding material to 
the trumpet and volume to the sound. The Church 
is God's golden lampstand, and everyone who is 
taught of God is part of that framework, helping to 
lift the Light of the world higher and give its rays 
more range and power. Because we believe, there- 
fore we speak, is the reason for missions. Every 
one of us is needed in the work : the Church, the 
world, God, have need of us, and we ourselves need 
the work for our own growth. 

The Church, as primitive piety declined, built up 
priestly barriers about the " clergy" and taught the 
" laity "that it was impertinent intrusion for those 
who are not " ordained," to preach the good tidings. 
But in all great epochs of spiritual power, believers 
have burst these bonds like cords of burnt tow, and 
claimed the universal, inalienable right to tell lost 
souls of Jesus. Such false restraints are cerements 
of the tomb ; they belong not to the living but to the 
dead; they have the odour of decay, and, like other 
grave-clothes, should be left behind in the sepulchre. 
When Christ's voice calls the dead to life, and one comes 
forth bound hand and foot with ceremonialism and tra- 
ditionalism, even his mouth bound about with the nap- 
kin of enforced silence — the Lord of Glory says, 
"Loose him and let him go!" As well force him 
back into the sepulchre and roll the stone to the door 



164 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

as to leave a converted soul bound ! Let every live 
man be a free man. Stand back! ye who would 
fetter a disciple's utterance. He is one of God's 
witnesses. Teach his tongue, but do not bind it! 
Train him for service, but do not hold him back! 
Ye, who are preachers and pastors, become ye 
teachers of teachers, trainers of workers ! turn your 
churches into recruiting offices, barracks, armouries, 
where disciples enlist for the war, and are put 
through the drill and discipline of soldiers; where 
they put on the whole armour of God, and then go 
forth, led by you, to fight the good fight of faith ! 

Do we, with needless repetition, seek to emphasize 
this lesson of the common duty and privilege of 
believers to preach the gospel ? Mark how God 
repeats it in this book. That Samarian Pentecost 
was a new voice of God teaching this truth. All that 
great work of grace revolved about Philip the deacon, 
a man set apart indeed, but not for preaching or bap- 
tizing; and God set his own sign and seal in a won- 
derful way upon the ministry of this lay evangelist. 
What a divine rebuke, to all unscriptural notions, 
whether sacerdotal or sacramental ! The age of mis- 
sions holds a blessing so large, that it cannot be con- 
fined within priestly lines and limits. The vast host 
to be reached defies us to overtake their destitution 
while we rely upon a few thousand educated, 
ordained, highly trained workmen. Millions sink, 
unsaved and unwarned, while we are waiting for 
experts to come to their rescue with all the most 
improved life-saving apparatus of the schools. If 
for these souls in wreck we cannot command the 
rocket and gun, the swinging-basket and life-boat, 
let us have the strong arm of the swimmer, the 
plank — anything to save a sinking man ! 

Let us thank God for the age of a Reformed 
Church ! For fifteen centuries the vicious ecclesi- 
asticism that found deep root in Constantine's rule, 
overshadowed the Church, and some remnants of it 



THE CALL TO ALL DLSCLPLES. 165 

still survive. Too often, with the average Christian, 
the practical conception of duty is fulfilled if he 
attends Church-worship, supports the preacher, gives 
to benevolent work, and lives an upright life, leaving 
to the minister to do the preaching and to take care 
of souls. 

Such notions find no native soil in the Acts of the 
Apostles. There, from first to last, we find one 
truth taught and one duty done: all who believed 
were expected to take part in spreading the faith; 
many, not fitted to lead and teach, could, at least, tell 
the good tidings. In every age, and above all in an 
age of reviving missionary activity, this fact needs 
anew to be wrought into the convictions of God's 
people, that in this sort of "preaching" every 
believer is to have part. No golden chalice, costly 
and rare, polished and jewelled, is needed to bear 
water to those who are dying of thirst ; a tin cup or 
a broken potsherd will do, anything that will hold 
water. 

In our day, new voices of God, loud and clear, are 
calling disciples to share in this active, aggressive 
crusade for Christ. God's Providence is the new 
"Peter, the Hermit," that goes through Christen- 
dom, shouting, " Deus vult!" — God wills it! The 
one great feature of our century has been the growth 
of consecrated individualism ; and as a natural, neces- 
sary sequence, has come the breaking down of all 
false barriers that, in direct work for souls, fence 
in ministers of Christ and fence out members of 
churches. While the ministers are no less needed 
and no less busy, in all churches where true life 
throbs common believers have come to feel that 
every man is his brother's keeper; and that to shirk 
personal work for souls is not only culpable neglect 
of the lost, but serious risk of spiritual loss to the 
neglecting party ! 

It is just a century ago since, in 1793, France 
called all loval citizens to rise and resist the flood of 



166 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

invading foes that threatened the destruction of the 
nation. All were bidden to take part in the work. 
The older men could forge arms and the younger 
bear them; the women could make tents and uni- 
forms, and even the children could scrape lint and 
prepare bandages. The God of Battles calls all 
alike, old and young, men, women, children, to a 
share in the work and war of the ages. He tells us 
in unmistakable terms, that those who think of 
nothing beyond their own salvation, are scarcely 
saved, if at all ; and in answer to His summons, a new 
generation of disciples is coming forward trained to 
an unselfish consecration to soul-saving. 

i. If we seek some examples of this modern devel- 
opment of personal activity in Christian service, let 
us hear God's voice in the modern Sunday-school. 
Robert Raikes had originally no aim beyond the occu- 
pation of the idle, ignorant children, who made the 
Lord's day noisy with their mischief. But God was 
behind the movement that started in Gloucester, and 
by it He was leading out believers into new fields of 
work. And now in the Sunday-school, the humblest 
disciple may find a little congregation for teaching 
saving truth, a little parish for exercise of pas- 
toral oversight, a little field to sow and reap in the 
Master's name. So universal has the Sunday-school 
become that no church is complete without this 
nursery of young plants for the Lord's garden. 

2. The Young Men's Christian Association, now 
completing its first half century, has a like provi- 
dential mission. Its rapid growth and world-wide 
extension reveal its place in the plan of God. 
Already it has wrought three marked results: it 
has brought believers together, encouraged Bible 
study, and trained lay workers. 

It belongs to the very basis of this great organ- 
ization, that it lifts into prominence only the grand 
truths which evangelical disciples hold in common; 
and so, leaving out of sight those minor matters of 



THE CALL TO ALL DLSCLPLES. 167 

creed or polity which have often proved divisive and 
destructive of unity, it unifies all believers by mag- 
nifying their agreements and minimizing their dif- 
ferences. 

Then this association directly stimulates systematic 
search into Holy Scripture, putting the word of God 
into the hands of young men as their text-book in 
holy living and serving, and teaching them that its 
contents are to be mastered and utilized for growth 
in grace and usefulness. The last half century is 
the era of the Bagster and the Oxford Bible as the 
habitual companion of Christian young men. 

These two results contribute to a third, yet more 
important — the raising up of a generation of young 
men competent to take intelligent part in soul-win- 
ning. Even the Apostolic age *may safely be chal- 
lenged to show any parallel development in this 
direction. Within fifty years hundreds of thousands 
of young men have been brought to think, not of 
denominational distinctions, but of fundamental, 
saving gospel truths; led to give themselves to 
personal study of the word of God, until they have 
attained marvellous mastery of its contents and 
facility in its use, and then have been drawn to feel 
the duty and delight of direct work to save others, 
and to engage directly in active personal service for 
Christ. 

It is a sublime sight to behold this vast army of 
young men, prayerfully searching the Scriptures, 
and then going forth to use their knowledge of the 
inspired word to guide others to Christ, and train 
them for similar service. To this lay-activity the 
whole providential history of this world-embracing 
organization has so rapidly and directly led, that 
even those who were once incredulous and suspicious 
are constrained to see in it all, the will and working 
of God. Just now there is, perhaps, a risk that in 
the new stress laid upon athletic skill, intellectual 
culture, social standing, moral excellence, the ulti- 



168 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

mate end which God obviously had in view may be 
sacrificed or obscured. If the Young Men's Christian 
Association should degenerate into a mere religious 
club; if spiritual development is made subordinate 
to any other end; if Bible study, training for service 
and actual soul-saving are ever pushed to the rear to 
make way for other practical objects however laud- 
able, the unique place which this association has 
filled in history will be sacrificed, and it will be no 
longer the important factor and mighty force it has 
been in the purpose of God. As one who has been 
identified with this organization for forty years, and 
who has lovingly and thankfully watched its growth, 
the writer of these pages thus leaves on record his 
warning word against those devices of the devil 
which endanger the future of this wonderful out- 
growth of this missionary century. 

3. It must not be forgotten that Young Women 's 
Christian Associations are the natural result of the 
other, seeking to do for the sisterhood what the 
companion associations have done for the brother- 
hood; and there is coming to be, not the unsexing, 
but the unbinding of woman. In the kingdom of 
God there is to be " neither male nor female." Fet- 
ters of unscriptural restriction are fast falling off 
from the gentler as from the sterner sex; and where 
man finds a closed door, woman's suasive tenderness 
and delicacy touches the secret springs of power. 

4. Another example of God's call to general activ- 
ity in behalf of souls is found in the Young People's 
Society of Christian Endeavor. 

In the year 1881, somewhat more than thirteen 
years ago, a young New England pastor felt that 
something must be done among the younger mem- 
bers of his congregation to educate them into habits 
of witnessing and working for Christ. He must 
unloose tongues spiritually dumb, and arrest the 
drift toward the Dead Sea of idleness and stagnation. 
So he formed in his own church the first society of 



THE CALL TO ALL DLSCLPLES. 169 

Christian Endeavor. Its simple secret was a pledge 
regularly to attend its meetings and habitually to take 
part in some way in their exercises. Around this 
mutual covenant, as a nucleus, the society rapidly 
grew; and so well did the new plan work that 
neighbouring pastors and churches followed the lead, 
and formed societies of a like sort. And so it 
has come to pass that live coals from the altar 
at Portland, Maine, have been borne from church 
to church, until, as we write, the number of these 
organizations is already legion, and the total mem- 
bership reaches 1,725,000. Rev. F. E. Clark, D.D., 
who ail-unconsciously kindled this first fire, has 
been on a world-round tour to visit, as bishop, the 
hundreds of societies which are belting the globe ! 

5. What shall be said of the "Salvation Army" 
which, notwithstanding its crude notions and strange 
methods, has left in the rear all other organiza- 
tions for carrying the gospel to the most destitute? 
After an existence of twenty-eight years, it reports 
4,397 mission stations; seventy-four homes of rest 
for officers whose health is broken down; sixty-six 
schools for the training of officers; sixty-four slum 
posts; forty -nine rescue homes for fallen women; 
twelve prison-gate homes, fifty-two food and shelter 
depots ; thirty-four factories and employment offices ; 
and five farm colonies. 

Who can look at such developments of our own day 
and not see God's way of working? How plainly do 
all these, and other similar voices of God, unite in 
one loud testimony! He is evoking all the latent 
energies of his Church for the work of witnessing to 
all men the gospel of His grace, with a rapidity and 
energy that remind us of the Apostolic age; the 
forces He had set in motion have swept away arti- 
ficial barriers between young and old, male and 
female, and thrust all alike into the field of service. 
He who watches the signs of the times must see God 
in history and will have no doubt which way His 



170 THE XEIV ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

march is moving. He is summoning and leading 
all willing followers to a combined assault on the 
strongholds of Satan and the powers of hell. 






III. 

THE VISION OF THE FIELD. 

Our Lord's farewell words taught that great second 
lesson, that the field of witness is as wide as the 
world. 

" Unto the uttermost parts of the earth" must dis- 
ciples go. Dispersion is the next lesson to be learned, 
and learned anew in every age. Pentecost prepared 
for the scattering of those whom the Spirit endued, 
as they went back to the four quarters of the inhab- 
ited world with the life-giving word. 

When the disciples, thus endued with power, re- 
turned to their separate abodes, this dispersion was 
itself a missionary campaign. The annual Passover 
at the national capital was a mighty magnet whose 
attractive force was felt wherever the scattered rem- 
nants of the Hebrew race were found. Great was the 
concourse, and from many lands. The procession of 
pilgrims was like the flood, swept through dry river- 
beds by the latter rain, and for miles around the 
sacred city houses and hamlets were crowded, and in 
every valley and grove tents thronged like a camp. 
When those who thus came up to keep the feasts of 
Passover and Pentecost went back with the endue- 
ment of power, God was in unforeseen ways multi- 
plying the channels for far-reaching and effective 
witness. What human wisdom could have planned a 
scheme whereby the experience of one day in Jeru- 
salem should thus touch so quickly the very ends of 
the earth ! 

The persecution that arose about Stephen was 
another event, vocal with a new command for dis- 
persion. Disciples were prone to congregate and 
concentrate at Jerusalem ; it compelled them to sepa- 
rate and scatter. It was natural for the Jewish 



172 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

Christian Church to gravitate toward the old centre 
of the hierarchy and of worship, where the tribes had 
been wont to gather. But the centripetal attraction 
has always been the fatal foe of missions. Love is 
a centrifugal force, and He who taught us the supreme 
lesson of love, said, ' ' Go ye into all the world ; as 
My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you." When 
this message was in danger of being unheeded, and 
the old tendency to selfish centralization and religious 
seclusion was asserting itself, God, by His provi- 
dence, repeated with stern emphasis the lesson that 
the Church was to disperse far and wide. It was 
done as by a peal of thunder and the shock of earth- 
quake. Persecution with explosive violence drove 
disciples from the Holy City to the very bounds of 
Palestine. The Church was shattered that it might 
be scattered, and fragments were found at Antioch 
and throughout Syria, at Cyprus, and throughout 
Phoenicia. And so persecution became the parent of 
early Christian missions. Strange parentage! "Out 
of the eater came forth meat ! " The devouring lion 
furnishes supplies to the hungry. 

Thus, for all time, God's voice was heard, and the 
lesson is left on record that, in all this age of evan- 
gelism, the policy of His people is to be diffusion and 
dispersion. No favoured, favourite capital is to 
become our chapel-of-ease, our earthly rest, even 
though it could be an earthly Heaven, while hell is 
found raging in the regions beyond. Even the joys 
of Christian fellowship may become too absorbing. 
Selfishness in its most refined forms must yield to 
the unselfishness which resigns such companionship 
for ourselves that it may become possible to introduce 
the most depraved, degraded and destitute to the fel- 
lowship of saints and of God. Any influence, any 
combination of causes, implies a curse to the believer 
whenever it makes the Church a cradle to rock God's 
children to sleep with the soft lullaby of " Home, 
Sweet Home!" 



THE VISION OF THE FIELD. 173 

Other visions and voices fastened the impression of 
this second lesson that the witness of disciples is to 
find in the wide world, its field. 

i. Peter's trance on the housetop at Joppa was both 
a vision and a voice, teaching most impressively this 
truth. A parable was enacted, the Divine hand 
being back of the shifting scenery. The sheet, let 
down from heaven by its four corners, in which were 
found all manner of creatures, wild and tame, clean 
and unclean, was a speaking symbol of the Church, 
not of man's device but of God's design, let down 
from heaven and to be caught up again into heaven; 
its four corners hinting its universal character, reach- 
ing ultimately to the four corners of the earth ; within 
whose ample folds are to be brought all classes 
and conditions of men, from all quarters and climes, 
nations and grades of society, and representing all 
varieties of intellectual and moral degradation and 
development. 

No pictorial lesson ever before or since has so 
taught the value and dignity of man as man ! The 
vision was itself sufficiently vocal, yet it must have a 
voice to interpret it, and that voice three times spoke 
the same words : 

" WHAT GOD HATH CLEANSED, 

THAT CALL NOT THOU COMMON !" 

Blow after blow of God's heavy hammer, to break 
into pieces and beat into powder, the adamantine 
walls of Jewish exclusiveness, and the brazen gates 
of religious bigotry ! 

Peter was a representative Jew, and, unlike Paul, 
seems never as yet to have strayed beyond the bounds 
of the Holy Land. He was an ecclesiastical aristocrat. 
To all such as he, the law of separation obscures the 
law of love. This voice and vision were meant for 
more than himself. They were the lasting rebuke of 
that spirit of Caste which upholds invidious distinc- 



174 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

tions, and upbuilds impassable barriers between 
man and man. 

Of caste, it is not too much to say that it has been 
the one giant foe of world-wide missions. Very- 
early in Church history God's own hand wrote upon 
the wall, in letters of fire, such as struck awe to the 
hearts of the Babylonian revellers — 

"What God hath cleansed, that call not thou com- 
mon." 

The whole race will never be reached with the 
gospel, until we learn what is meant by "all the 
world," and "every creature." In God's eyes, and 
therefore in our eyes, no line is to be drawn which 
limits love or labour for human souls; no discrimina- 
tion allowed, save in favour of the least and lowest, 
most destitute and degraded. We are to call or con- 
sider no man common or unclean; in love's impartial 
ministry, no one is to be evaded or avoided; and so 
far are we to be from such narrowness and selfish- 
ness that those are to have the first claim upon our 
sympathy and succour, who are most in need and 
most without help. 

Peter's vision marked a new stage, a new epoch in 
Church history. Years have sped by since the Lord 
went up and the Spirit came down. Yet, despite the 
great commission and the great effusion; notwith- 
standing the wide diffusion of the witnesses, by their 
return to distant homes, and the wide dispersion of 
persecuted disciples, two barriers 3^et remain to 
hinder the world-wide work: the tendency to cen- 
tralization and the principle of exclusion. The Jew 
had not yet learned that other places were lawful for 
worship and solemn assembly beside the Temple of 
Jerusalem, and that wherever worshippers meet in 
the Spirit, God is to be found. 

The old exclusive policy and spirit survived. As 
Thales, wisest and best of Greeks, looked on all 
outside of Greece as "barbarians," so, to the Jew all 
beyond the circle of the covenant were aliens to be 



THE VISION OF THE FIELD. 175 

shunned, if not foes to be hated. That phrase, 
"The Jews have no dealings with the Samari- 
tans," is the key to a chamber of curious and 
shameful customs and prejudices. The road between 
Jerusalem and Galilee lay through Samaria, and the 
Jew must needs go that way or cross the Jordan ; but 
he held his very garments free from the defiling 
touch of the inhabitants whom he despised as a 
hybrid, bastard progeny of heathenism and Judaism. 
By proximity a neighbour, the Samaritan was by 
hostility a foe, and the Jew would hesitate to point 
the lost traveller to the road or the thirsty pilgrim to 
a spring, if he belonged to that unclean race ! 

What wonder if such barriers had to be broken 
down before the work of missions could be done or 
the spirit of missions could have sway ! The walls 
that shut Jewish disciples in, shut strangers and for- 
eigners out. Obstinate holding on to Jerusalem 
meant equally stubborn casting off of all outsiders. 
The lines of caste were in effect fatal hindrances to 
all world evangelization, barriers scarcely less rigid 
and frigid than those which part the millions of 
India. 

We have seen how the Providence and Spirit of 
God battered down these walls as with shot and 
shell by the explosive force of persecution, and how 
Philip's work in Samaria and his word to the Ethio- 
pian eunuch crossed caste lines ; and now, not as by 
earthquake, storm or flame, but in the still small 
voice of solemn rebuke and repeated remonstrance, 
God speaks to Peter, that he may echo it to the 
whole Church, that God's cleansing leaves no man 
common or unclean. Then followed at Caesar's 
palace and before a Roman audience, a display of 
grace that illustrated and enforced the lesson on the 
housetop, and forbade the Jew ever to dispute the 
right, even of the hated conqueror of his nation, to a 
full part in the great salvation. 

That lesson on the housetop was thrice taught 



176 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

perhaps because it concerned the work of the Triune 
God. The Father's electing grace, the Son's atoning 
blood, the Spirit's renewing power, — all cleanse 
believers equally and guarantee .their equality of 
right. But one thing is sure : so long as any man is 
to us common or unclean, we have not caught the 
divine passion of universal missions. Conversion 
implies contact, and contact, approach. To Peter, 
because he was appointed to open the kingdom to all 
believers, as the representative Apostle, the Divine 
Preacher gave this picture-lesson with its interpret- 
ing voice. The vision and the voice are equally for 
us. They teach that before Him who is no respecter 
of persons, all men are on the same moral level; 
that as to condemnation there is "no difference," 
' ' for all have sinned and come short of the glory of 
God;" that as to gracious invitation there is "no dif- 
ference," for the same Lord over all is rich unto all 
that call upon Him; and as to actual salvation and 
sanctification there is " no difference," for He puri- 
fies the hearts of all alike by faith. The first formal 
proclamation of this fact of the universality of gospel 
grace was to be made in the palace of Roman aliens, 
before a gentile centurion and his company, and 
Peter was to announce it. Hence the thrice-repeated 
lesson which compelled the impetuous and wilful 
Jew to learn human equality before God. 

When these new chapters in the Acts of the Apos- 
tles were to be written, in our age of missions, the 
old lesson was retaught, and if possible, with heavier 
accentuation of its central truth. In heathen lands 
caste lines and limits are frigidly rigid like ice bar- 
riers. The Brahmanic system has been aptly char- 
acterized as " a cellular structure of society in which 
the cells never interpenetrate." The different 
classes, which are by a hoary superstition con- 
nected with different parts of the body of Brahm, 
are like strata of rock, petrified into immobility and 
immutability. Nothing short of an earthquake con- 



THE VISION OF THE FIELD. 177 

vulsion, upheaving the whole social order, could 
break up this strong fatality of social status. No 
personal worth or intellectual attainment or heroic 
achievement, no service to the nation or to its relig- 
ion, can lift a Hindu above the level of caste in which 
he was born, though a trifling violation of petty rules 
may sink him to a lower level as an out-caste. Cus- 
toms so absurdly unreasonable and inflexible become 
barriers to mutual fellowship, even between converts 
at the table of the Lord, and in work for souls. 

Thus it is not too much to say that the most for- 
midable obstacle to oriental missions is caste. The 
Tabu system found prevailing in the islands of the 
sea was essentially identical with it, forbidding wives 
to share a meal with their husbands, and making it a 
capital crime for an inferior to cast his shadow upon 
his chief by inadvertently passing between him and 
the sun! 

Caste lines are not confined to heathen, pagan and 
moslem territory. In countries, called Christian, we 
find arbitrary distinctions scarcely less formidable 
as hindrances to practical fellowship and common 
service. In some Protestant communities there ex- 
ists an aristocratic social structure, where partition 
walls still effectually divide patrician and plebeian 
classes, nobility and commonalty. True, it is pos- 
sible for a man to rise higher : the common labourer 
sometimes becomes the master-workman, the mer- 
chant prince, the member of Parliament or of the rul- 
ing class. But ascent is not easy, and we all need 
Peter's lesson reiterated: What God hath cleansed, 
that call not thou common. Republics as well as 
monarchies, democracy as well as aristocracy, prove 
human nature still to be depraved, for in the best 
social state we find caste walls existing. What is 
more despotic than the aristocracy of wealth, that 
hangs one's social rank on the chance of a business 
venture; or the aristocracy of fashion, that makes 
Brummels princes, and character something worn on 



178 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

the back, to be bought at a tailor's shop ; or even the 
aristocracy of culture, which weighs manhood in the 
scales of refinement and confounds morals with 
manners ? 

God saw how much there was needed a new lesson 
even in this missionary century, a lesson to be 
taught repeatedly and emphatically, that the only 
real, ultimate standard of value is that which is 
within reach of all, namely, moral worth; and that 
as to accidents of birth or blood, of poverty, culture 
and social position, the Scotch poet was a moral 
philosopher when he sang, 

" A man's a man for a' that ! " 

That social system which most allows men to breathe 
and move freely, affording inspiration to hope and 
scope* for growth, is the most perfect. The lamented 
President Garfield, himself an example of one who 
had risen far above his native level, used to say 
that the ideal state is one where we find, not " as in 
the land, fixed and immovable layers of soil or rock, 
but as in the sea, conditions so elastic and flexible, 
that the drop which to-day touches the sand at the 
bottom may to-morrow gleam upon the wave's crest." 
If in any man there be the force that bears him 
onward and upward, love forbids us to hold him 
hopelessly down. The Church should present an 
ideal state, where all have equal rights, and equal 
claims upon all that can uplift, emancipate, educate 
body, mind, soul; where aspiration has full play, and 
advancement finds favouring conditions. 

When King James sent the poor poet, Ben Jon- 
son, a present of a crown piece, Jonson sent back 
word by the bearer, "The king sends me five 
shillings because I live in an alley. Go tell him 
that his soul lives in an alley!" Modern missions 
have written in letters of light this noble lesson, 
that many a man who is clothed in purple and fine 
linen, lives in an alley; and many a beggar who lies 



THE VISION OE THE EIELD. 179 

at the gate, asking alms of charity, is on his way to 
the King's palace. See how the Divine Teacher has 
taught the inherent dignity and royalty of character, 
in choosing for leaders of the Church universal, 
Carey from the cobbler's bench, Williams from the 
ironmonger's forge, Marsden from the blacksmith's 
anvil, Livingstone from the cotton mill, Hunt from 
the farmer's plough, Johnson from the sugar refinery ! 

Let us beware how we foster the spirit of caste. 
Charles Darwin pronounced the Patagonians the 
missing link between man and the monkey, and 
thought that not even the lever of Christian missions 
could uplift them ; the French papist who ruled on 
the Isle of Bourbon told the pioneer missionaries to 
Madagascar that to convert the Malagasy was as 
hopeless as to convert oxen, sheep, or asses. But 
even so enlightened a man as a Canon of Westmin- 
ster ranked the aboriginies of Australia so low that 
it was not worth while to expend labour upon them. 
In appeals for Africa, how often have we been met 
by the objection that it is a waste of men and money 
to preach to the fetish worshippers, because they 
have no capacity to understand or receive spiritual 
truth, and the image of God, if it ever existed in 
them, is not only defaced but effaced ! 

The whole history of modern missions is a vision 
and a voice in favour of man as man. God has shown 
by the proof of facts, by that most conclusive argu- 
ment — experiment — that no human being is too high 
to need the gospel, or too low to be reached by it. 
The most signal triumphs and glorious trophies of 
the good tidings have been among the very classes 
whom our scepticism would account beneath the 
reach-even of saving grace. The most fertile fields 
for the seed of the kingdom have been those pre- 
viously the most barren of good, or desperately fruit- 
ful in evil. Man would have turned to the higher 
classes, appealing to intelligence and capacity. But 
while they have turned from Christ with contempt, 



180 .THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

behold the debased demon worshipper in whom all 
ideas of true worship seem obliterated; or the de- 
graded cannibal, without natural affection, implaca- 
ble, unmerciful ; or the brutal savage, whose religion 
was a mixture of lust and lies, robbery and cruelty, 
bloody wars and lawless violence, who cared neither 
for the virtue of womanhood, nor the innocence of 
childhood, nor the helplessness of old age — behold 
such brought to bow at Jesus' feet, and then going 
forth to tell of Him to others ! We can scarce be- 
lieve our own eyes as we see the modern miracles of 
missions, of which no pen has ever told the half. 
Those who glutted their avarice by pillage, their re- 
venge by slaughter, their appetite by feasts on 
human flesh, — these have been found believing in 
Jesus and heralding His power to save! Let God 
speak, ye who think even the worst of the race be- 
neath your respect and unworthy of Christian effort ! 
" God hath made of one blood all nations of men; " 
and by one blood hath He redeemed all peoples. 
Therefore, He says, " Go ye into all the world and 
make disciples of all nations." 

Yes, the century is vocal with divine appeals for 
man as man. Enthusiasm for humanity, that divine 
passion for souls, must sweep away the hollow, 
shallow distinctions which part men asunder. In 
every human soul we must see the potential saint, 
outranking angels in the closeness of bond with 
Christ. Without such enthusiasm for humanity, 
missions must languish. 

Peter's vision on the housetop was the forecast ; the 
modern Church is the prophecy fulfilling. In the 
sheet let down from heaven every class of mankind 
is already embraced. Wild beasts have been iamed 
and turned into obedient bullocks, ready for plough 
or altar; unclean birds of prey are changed to gentle 
doves, celestial songsters, birds of paradise; crawl- 
ing reptiles that crept along the earth are trans- 
formed into erect men who walk with God. What 



THE VISION OF THE FIELD. 181 

the Apostle saw in anticipation, we see in realiza- 
tion. 

2. Paul, as well as Peter, was taught a divine les- 
son on the universal need of man. How different 
his experience at Athens from that of Peter at Cesa- 
rea, yet both essentially impress one great lesson. 

That "altar to the unknown God " in the very cen- 
tre of Greek art and wisdom, beauty and philosophy, 
brands as a failure any civilization that knows not 
God, because it has no savouring or saving element — 
no salt of salvation. It reminds one of Heine's com- 
paring beautiful women without religion to flowers 
without perfume — cold, sober tulips in china vases, 
looking as though they were also of porcelain, and 
seeming to say that it is all-sufficient not to have a 
bad odour, and that a rational flower needs no fra- 
grance. Athens stands in history as the tulip in the 
vase, coldly beautiful, lifelessly eesthetic — having no 
savour or flavour of high moral virtue or piety. And 
Paul's comparative ill success at the Greek capital, 
and the apathetic hearing at Mars Hill, serve to re- 
mind us that stagnant indifference is as bad as vio- 
lent opposition, and that blasphemers and barbarians 
go into the kingdom of God before scholarly sceptics 
and cultivated worldlings. As yet not many wise, 
mighty, noble, are called. God chooses the foolish, 
weak, despised nothings to bring to naught the some- 
things. And yet as the Countess of Huntingdon 
said, let us thank God it is not true that not any, 
though not many of the wise and mighty are called. 
There was one Areopagite, Dionysius, who clave to 
the Apostle, so that the address on Mars Hill won one 
convert even from the philosophers. The loftiest as 
well as lowliest need the gospel, and we are to pro- 
claim it at Corinth and Athens as well as at Nazareth 
and Gadara. 

That sermon to the Areopagite wise men should 
be studied, for it addresses universal and conscious 
instincts of man's religious nature. It was a unique 



182 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

address, wholly unlike any other Paul ever delivered. 
In it he spoke to those who knew not the true God 
nor the sacred writings of His prophets, nor the 
words and works of Jesus, His Son. Hence he had 
to go further back and deeper down than when he 
spoke to Felix or Agrippa, to Jews at Jerusalem or 
Greeks at Antioch. He appealed to seven universal 
instincts: 

i. The Filial: " For we also are His offspring." 

2. The Fraternal: "He hath made of one blood," 
&c. 

3. The Thcistic : "Your altar to the unknown 
God." 

4. The Judicial: "A day in the which He will 
judge the world." 

5. The Religions: "In all things ye are very 
religious." 

6. The instinct of Worship: "Ye ignorantly 
worship." 

7. The instinct of Prayer: "Should feel after 
Him,"&c. 

In modern days, sagacious missionaries have 
learned from Paul at Athens, that in every clime 
they may find classes of men who know not God, 
but to whose instinctive religious nature they may 
appeal. 

The universal belief in God, which, however ob- 
scured, seemed never obliterated, furnishes a basis 
for. preaching the gospel to all men. Fred. Stanley 
Arnot found everywhere in Africa two existing 
notions: First, of a supreme power over all; and 
secondly, of a future life bej^ond death. To these he 
could always safely appeal. And even in Moham- 
medan lands where little has yet been done, encour- 
agements are not wanting; for the followers of the 
Prophet are not idolaters, and claim to be mono- 
theists, and to accept even the Old Testament. 
Among them we have the religious instincts com- 
paratively pure. 



THE VISION OF THE FIELD. 183 

3. Paul's night vision at Troas was literally vocal, 
for the man of Macedonia prayed him, saying, 
"Come over into Macedonia, and help us;" and 
from that vision and that voice he assuredly gathered 
that the Lord was calling him to a new field in the 
regions beyond. And so the gospel first entered 
Europe. 

That vocal vision was for the whole Church, and it 
means that we are never to rest, whatever has been 
done, while more yet remains undone. However 
wide the sweep of our mission tours, if beyond this 
circle of effort there is a region where the gospel has 
not reached, this fact constitutes a trumpet peal of 
God. And especially if the peal be also a personal 
appeal ; if, as in so many cases, human need finds a 
voice wherewith to call, as Mtesa did from Uganda, 
as Chulalangkorn did from Siam, as Pomare did 
from Tahiti, as Ranavolona II. did from Madagas- 
car, as McAll did from France, — how prompt should 
be the response from the Church of Christ ! When 
out of the region of darkness and death-shade, 
heathen and pagan peoples clamour for Christian 
teachers; when fields are ready for the sower and 
there is no one to scatter the seed, or ready for the 
reaper and there is no one to put in the sickle ; when 
doors open fast and wide, and no labourers enter some 
of them, and in other cases, too few, why do we not 
assuredly gather that God is calling us to go and 
carry the cross with us? Why are we so slow to 
push the schemes of holy work into new territory, 
and send or bear the bread of life to starving souls ? 
Plow can God set before us a wider and more effec- 
tual door than when the heathen themselves are ready 
to hear the gospel, and make appeal to us to come to 
them? 

This is the paradox of missions. Where are our 
sandals of alacrity that we speed not as on wings of 
love to fly to the help of the perishing! Had we the 
true passion for souls, Satan would no longer be the 



184 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

hinderer, though he piled up obstacles in our way. 
We should overleap all self-denials in our zeal to re- 
lieve soul-wants. It is one of the irreconcilable con- 
tradictions of history that the instinctive human 
sympathies have more readily responded to the 
appeal of flood or famine, pestilence or plague, than 
the Christian heart to the awful need of those who 
perish of hunger for living bread, or who are swept 
away by the flood of sin and smitten with the leprosy 
of self-consuming lusts ! Temporal wants and woes 
are real to our sluggish sense, but we are dead to the 
spiritual poverty and misery of humanity. 

That night vision at Troas has been a thousand 
times repeated within the last century. That man 
of Macedonia may be seen whichever way we look, 
and the voice calls to us from every quarter of the 
horizon. Who that watches modern missions does 
not feel that what Paul saw and heard at Troas has 
become the vision for all believers, and the voice from 
all lands? Let the eye sweep round the whole world, 
and on the coasts of Corea and Japan, from the 
depths of Inland China, from the hills of Burma and 
the rivers of Siam, from India's coral strand and 
Persia's plains, from the borders of the Red Sea and 
the valley of the Nile, the banks of the Congo and 
the vast stretch of the Soudan, from papal countries 
and pagan communities, there comes one loud voice : 
" Come over into our Macedonia and help us." Were 
our eyes not dull of vision, and our ears, of hearing, 
through the flare and glare and blare of this world, 
we should see and hear this " man of Macedonia," 
standing at every point of the horizon, stretching 
forth hands in appeal, and calling for help. 

King Mtesa, whose request for teachers found 
such voice through Stanley's letters that it pealed 
across thousands of miles of land and sea and was 
heard in Britain and America, was only a repre- 
sentative of the race. The needs of Siam have been 
referred to; there, cities as large as Birmingham 






THE VISION OF THE FIELD. 185 

and Edinburgh, Leeds and Leicester, are asking 
vainly for one evangelist to come to their hundreds 
of thousands, and tell how God loved the world. 
Burma and the Karens have never had all the help- 
ers which the field demanded. Japan, the modern 
marvel, suddenly threw open her long-locked sea 
gates forty years ago; and China, India, Central 
America, Papal Europe, became likewise open fields 
for missions — all within a twelvemonth! And yet 
the devil has shown more zeal to take possession 
than the children of God. Read the story of the 
South Seas, and see how the consecrated energy of 
John Hunt and John Williams, of Geddie and 
Marsden and Selwyn and Patteson and Paton proved 
unequal to the meeting of the demands for Bibles 
and men. From that day to this the same experience 
has been repeated elsewhere. For centuries, where 
Rome ruled, the open Bible was flung into the flames 
and the Protestant missionary dared prison cell, if 
not martyr's stake. Now France has over a hundred 
and thirty McAll mission salles, and might have 
a thousand but for want of money and men ; and 
the land of the Inquisition is growing harvests for 
God in the very fields which Torquemadaand Valdez, 
Deza and Ximenes unconsciously fertilized with the 
ashes of thirty thousand saints. Think of Bible carts 
in Madrid unable to supply books sufficient for those 
who would buy; and a few elect messengers of the 
cross struggling to meet the wants of hundreds who 
are deserting the crucifix! When Ethiopia thus 
stretches forth hands unto God, when China's mill- 
ions call for missions, and Corea's valleys begin to 
be vocal with praise; when the capital of the papacy 
has thirty Protestant chapels within its walls; when 
from the kingdom of the sunrise to the land of the 
sunset, there goes up one call for Bibles, schools and 
churches, teachers and preachers, what is it but the 
call from Macedonia repeated like a thunder-peal all 
around the circle of the earth ! 



186 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

There are hindrances, no doubt, in the way of 
missions, but they are most serious within the 
Church. We are not so ready to send messengers 
and Bibles as the unevangelized often are to receive. 
If the response of the Church were as quick as the 
appeal from the world is loud, within our generation 
every hill and valley of the earth might be sending 
up to God the incense of prayer and praise. 

The slowness of our forward march is saddening, 
but no words can fitly characterize the sin and the 
crime of going backward. The call for ' ' retrench- 
ment " is like the tolling of a death-knell from the 
belfry of our missionary boards. Think of it ! For 
lack of men and means, we cannot go a step ahead 
even to enter new doors, but must go back and leave 
fields already occupied! We cannot advance but 
must retreat — abandoning vantage-ground already 
gained, and, instead of taking new strongholds, 
evacuating those strategic positions now held! 
Think of closing preaching stations, shutting up 
schools, turning adrift native evangelists, locking up 
Christian presses with silence, calling in our forces 
and beating a retreat! It seems incredible ; but 
every time the cry goes forth, retrench ! it means all 
this and a great deal more ! 

When Judson was in the very crisis of his work in 
Burma, the appropriation for the mission was ten 
thousand rupees less than the current expenses re- 
quired. Instead of any advance, he could not even 
hold his already-gained positions. With a disap- 
pointment that bordered on despair, he solemnly 
recorded as his "growing conviction" that "the 
Baptist churches in America are behind the age in 
missionary spirit. They now and then make a spas- 
modic effort to throw off a nightmare debt of some 
years' accumulation, and then sink back into uncon- 
scious repose. Then come paralyzing orders to re- 
trench; new enterprises are checked in their very 
conception, and applicants for missionary employ are 



THE VISION OF THE FIELD. 187 

advised to wait, and soon became merged in the 
ministry at home." And so letters, which ought to 
have been like a soft and cooling breeze to a heated 
brow, came upon him like a sudden tornado, sweep- 
ing away the plans of missionary evangelism. He 
said in his agony, ' ' I thought they loved me ; and 
they would scarce have known it if I had died! I 
thought they were praying for us; and they have 
never once thought of us !" And so it seemed to the 
missionary in his unsupported work. 

4. God has in every nation, elect saints; because 
the gospel message is for man as man, converts are 
gathered out of most unlikely fields. How signifi- 
cant, therefore, were that vision and voice at Corinth, 
when the Lord spake to Paul ; ' ' Be not afraid but 
speak, and hold not thy peace; for I am with thee, 
and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee ; for I have 
much people in this city." 

That vision and voice were for the whole Church and 
for all time. Often has God shown that even where 
human hate builds huge walls against the truth, and 
human wrath builds hot fires for its witnesses, He 
has much people ; and that the faith that fears not, 
can face the foes of God and of His gospel with firm- 
ness and unfaltering fixedness of heart, still wit- 
nessing to the cross. While martyrs have burned, 
they have been snatching brands from worse burn- 
ing to become branches of the true vine; and by 
their death have brought life to their very mur- 
derers, as Stephen's stoning was, perhaps, the secret 
of Saul's conversion. 

This lesson has been taught us so repeatedly in 
the New Acts of the Apostles that it must be re- 
served for special treatment when we come to con- 
sider the New Signs and Wonders. Suffice it now to 
repeat that in our age of missions, God has thus in 
many ways taught us by voices and visions this 
second great lesson : that the field for a witnessing 
Church is the whole world and embraces every 



188 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

creature. Man's universal need gives forth its con- 
scious echo in response to the good tidings. The 
worst men show capacity to repent, believe in Christ 
and receive the Spirit. Religious instincts, though 
buried, are not dead, and when exhumed, revive. 
Even in ruins, souls have a dignity and majesty 
which forbid caste lines to exclude even the lowest 
classes from the hope of saints and the love of the 
brotherhood. In every nation God has accepted 
souls. 



IV. 

THE NEW LESSON OF THE POWER. 

The third great lesson of the Acts of the Apostles 
we found to be, that the secret of power in witness- 
ing is the Holy Spirit of God; and about this, as the 
central lesson, all others cluster. 

A remarkable inversion will be noticed, which can- 
not be without meaning. When Luke concludes the 
gospel narrative, he makes our Lord to say : 

" Ye are witnesses of these things; 

"And, behold, I send the promise of my Father 
upon you ; 

" But tarry ye until ye be endued with power from 
on high." 

Contrast this with Luke's account of our Lord's 
final message before His ascension : 

"Ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost 
coming upon you ; 

"And ye shall be witnesses unto Me." 

Here the order of the former thought is exactly 
reversed. In the close of the gospel, it was first the 
work of witnessing, then the promise of power. In 
the beginning of the Acts, it is first the power, then 
the work of witness. The meaning of such inversion 
is not enigmatic. In the former message, the Lord 
followed the order natural to the commission of a 
trust; first, the thing to be done; then the secret of 
its well doing. But in the latter, the trust having 
been committed to disciples, the all-important thing 
is to fix the mind upon the only power which can 
assure the effective execution of the trust. And so 
with us. The command being once for all given, 
not to be repeated, the one matter in all subsequent 
time to engross attention, is, that we may be so filled 
with the Spirit of all power, whose infilling, if not 



190 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

outpouring, is forever new, that we may fulfil our 
Lord's great commission. 

Power is, in every sphere of work, the one all- 
important requisite. There are about man two great 
constituent elements : a body, fearfully and wonder- 
fully made — the outward, visible, material and per- 
ishable part; and the spirit, still more fearfully and 
wonderfully constituted — inward, invisible, immate- 
rial, immortal. In the original creation, "God made 
man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into 
his nostrils the breath or spirit of lives, and man 
became a living soul." What a divine tribute to the 
dignity, superiority, majesty of the spirit, as con- 
stituting the real man, of whom the body is but the 
house of habitation. 

This truth is typical and suggestive. About all 
else that pertains to man there is, first, what is out- 
ward, and then, what is inward ; what is visible, audi- 
ble, palpable, and somewhat beside which evades all 
sense tests ; somewhat that is transient, and somewhat 
that is permanent. Intelligent speech has its body — 
the spoken word ; and its soul — the thought which only 
thought can catch and hold. The printed page is a 
body created by human machinery, but enshrining 
an invisible something, emanating from the author's 
secret life. All man's work has a body, or outward 
form of utterance, action, effort; but that which gives 
it value is the subtle spirit that pervades it. 

In the "spiritual" sphere, whose very name car- 
ries a lesson — this distinction is vital. The prayer 
of the lips is but an empty form, unless the Spirit of 
God intercedes through and prevails in it: the wit- 
nessing word becomes the power of God to salvation 
and edification only when it is the body which He 
fills and thrills. What we call "unction" is not 
merely a fragrant chrism as of ointment poured 
forth; but an imparting of an essentially new and 
divine force, which brings and is, power. Hence, 
Pentecost was the condition of all true service, so 



THE NE W LESSON OF THE TO WER. 191 

essential that disciples were bidden to ' ' wait for the 
promise of the Father," to " tarry until endued with 
power from on high; " for until that power was given 
no force or true energy could be exerted. 

It is often said that it is worth while to wait upon 
God for the Spirit's infilling, because of the increase of 
power thus secured; but the Acts of the Apostles 
shows us a far deeper truth, that up to the point of 
this enduement with power, work is waste. We 
shall find, like the Greek philosopher who experi- 
mented upon a dead body, that we are trying to give 
to a lifeless form the erectness and energy of a living 
body; and, like him, be compelled to confess that it 
lacks ri evdov — something within. 

When James writes, ' ' The body without the spirit 
is dead," he gives us one maxim of the wisdom that is 
from above. He turns our thought back to that 
primal mystery of man's creation and the parallel 
mystery of his dissolution ; with the spirit, there is a 
living body, a corpus ; without the spirit, a dead body, 
a corpse — a mere mass of dead matter. It may still 
retain its fine and beautiful form and feature and 
exquisite organization ; but it has no power. It can- 
not work, or walk, or stand erect ; there is no light 
in the eye, no hearing in the ear, no response to 
touch, no thought in the brain — what was the tem- 
ple of mind is the chamber of death. 

But the inspired writer teaches a deeper truth, of 
which this is but a parable : "So faith without 
works is dead also" — a profession of faith is but a 
lifeless form, however fair, until the spirit of life 
vitalizes and energizes it, and makes possible the 
works of God. The Scripture maxim teaches a lesson 
broad enough to cover the whole world of man's ac- 
tivity and duty. His creed, his character, his wor- 
ship, his service, even his sacrifice — all are dead, 
unless and until, behind, beneath, within them all, the 
spirit of life is found. The form of sound words with- 
out the spirit of faith and love in Christ Jesus, is dead 



192 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

orthodoxy. The form of worship, however decorous 
and devout, is, without the spirit, dead formalism, 
ritualism — a censer, it may be of gold, set with gems, 
but empty of all incense. The form of godliness with- 
out the power of the spirit, becomes dead works, a self- 
righteous, soul-deceiving morality or external piety, 
as different from true godliness as a tomb is from a 
temple. Even godly service and self-sacrifice may in 
God's eyes be a dead body, inspired by no spirit of 
loyalty to Christ or charity and sympathy toward 
men; empty of soul as the sound of a brass trumpet 
or the clangour of a silver cymbal, worse than empti- 
ness — nothing! 

Is there no reason that this most vital truth be 
taught at the very opening of the Acts of the Apos- 
tles ? What more important lesson than this which 
touches all effective service, — this base-block of all 
missions : that only when God's Spirit possesses and 
controls, can we work or witness with power ! Until 
then, the best we can do is but a body without soul, 
a form of service without the force which gives it 
power and assures to it success. That lesson God 
thought so needful, that in this great book of primi- 
tive missions it is the first taught, and taught with 
tongues of fire ! 

Witnessing to Christ is therefore the Spirit of God 
using a human voice. Let the Spirit be lacking, and 
there may be wisdom of words, but not the wisdom 
of God; the power of oratory, but not the power of 
God ; the demonstration of argument and the logic of 
the schools, but not the demonstration of the Holy 
Spirit, the all-convincing logic of his lightning flash, 
such as convinced Saul before the Damascus gate. 
When the Spirit was outpoured and disciples were 
all filled with power from on high, the most unlet- 
tered tongue could silence gainsayers, and with its 
new fire burn its way through obstacles as flames 
fanned by mighty winds sweep through forests. 

The study of the universe discloses to us a mysteri- 



THE NEW LESSON OF THE POWER. 193 

ous quality, as in man. The whole creation of God 
as a whole, consists of a body and a spirit — matter 
and force. Matter is inert and motionless — power- 
less to effect results, whether for good or evil, until 
force lays hold on it. There is nothing to be feared 
in all God's universe but force. What are the huge 
mountain without gravitation, the blackest masses of 
storm-cloud without electricity, the gigantic sun 
without light and heat, the earthquake's awful vio- 
lence without chemical affinity, the shock of collid- 
ing orbs in space without momentum? And as only 
force is fearful, only force is forceful. If we seek 
power we must go not to matter, that in itself has 
not even power to lie still; but to that by which 
matter is held, moved, swayed, ruled, and which is 
the nearest to what in man we call spirit. 

No more wonderful fact confronts us in our actual 
experience of contact with this universe of God than 
the power He has given to man of commanding and 
controlling these eternal forces. They all move in 
obedience to certain conditions or in certain channels 
or modes of activity, which we call " laws;" and, 
therefore, intelligent beings can discover the secret of 
wielding them. If man, in ignorance of these laws 
or in daring disobedience to them, transgresses, disre- 
gards or opposes them, these forces are destructive 
beyond description. Gravitation dashes him to 
pieces, heat blasts him or consumes him, even light 
tortures and blinds him ; chemical affinity and repul- 
sion are his enemy and bring instant and awful ruin 
to him and his finest work ; all nature becomes his 
deadly foe, and unites all her gigantic and resist- 
less forces to overwhelm him with swift destruction. 

On the other hand, let man but obey the law of 
the force, and the force obeys him ! He obeys 
the laws of light and it becomes his servant, the deft 
artist that with unerring hand draws for him, with 
the sunbeam as its pencil, the face of a friend or the 
scenery of nature, delineating with the skill of per- 



194 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

fection every line and lineament, the delicate tracery 
of every leaf or blade of grass. Man observes the 
laws of heat, and it becomes the refiner and purifier 
of his precious metals, melting, moulding the most 
stubborn material into any desired form. He calls 
on gravity, and it comes as a master mechanic with 
a Titanic hammer to beat the rocks to powder, and 
as his smith to work night and day at the forge. 
Man learns to control chemical attraction and repul- 
sion, and effects marvellous combinations which make 
the universe his laboratory; or nitrogen, the lazy 
giant, comes with explosives to open the very bowels 
of the earth and reveal all mineral riches. Heat 
turns water into one of the greatest motive powers 
known, and drags his chariots over land and his vessels 
over the seas as though thirty thousand horses were 
yoked to them. Man obeys the laws of magnetism 
and it becomes his pilot over trackless wastes of 
waters; or he calls the very lightning to serve as 
motor, messenger, illuminator. 

Let us follow the analogy to a higher plane. God 
says, ' ' Concerning the work of My hands command 
ye Me!" Stupendous mystery! The Spirit of God 
has His chosen channels and methods; and this Su- 
preme Force of the universe offers Himself to serve 
man for the ends of the Work of God. Is it not still 
true, and may it not with reverence be said, ' ' Obey 
the law of the divine force and the force obeys you?" 
When God's Spirit controls the man, in a sublime 
sense the man controls the Spirit ; that is, he wields 
spiritual power. This paradox, like many others, is 
a truth. "God hath given the Holy Ghost to all 
that obey Him,"* and he who has the Spirit of God, 
wields the power of God. Let any humble disciple 
submit wholly to the Spirit's sovereign control, and 
He becomes to that disciple all and more than all that 
nature's forces become to humanity when guided by 
scientific intelligence, — his artist to delineate for him 



THE NEW LESSON OF THE POWEk. 195 

things divine and celestial, his refiner and purifier to 
purge away the dross from character and mould him 
into a chosen vessel, his giant helper to subdue all 
foes before him, his pilot over life's unknown sea, 
his motive power in holy enterprise, his messenger 
between earth and heaven, and his illuminator in the 
darkness of midnight and mystery. The Spirit of 
God bows low and condescends to offer to be the 
servant of those who serve God, to shape character 
after a divine pattern, and make our works the works 
of God. And therefore it is that our Saviour bade 
His disciples wait, tarrying until endued, for up to 
that point power was not theirs. 

Of this first lesson of the Acts the whole book is 
the illustration which constantly repeats and enforces 
the lesson by examples of power from on high. 
Pentecost was the outpouring of the Spirit from on 
high; the Apostolic age traces the flowing and 
widening and branching out of His streams. These 
chapters are channels revealing His power, new ex- 
amples and proofs of what the Spirit can and will do, 
when He actually dwells in, works in and works 
through disciples. 



V. 

THE NEW MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT. 

This book may well be called the Acts of the Holy 
Ghost, since He is here thus pre-eminent. Out of 
all the references to the Spirit of God found in the 
New Testament, four-fifths are found here. He 
filled disciples with His own power, separated and 
sent forth missionaries, appointed overseers in the 
Church, and witnessed with disciples. But more 
than this, this is the book of His personal presence. 
He was so among them that they walked in His 
comfort — Tfl irafjah'inoei — in his paracletism; that is, 
He became actually the Paraclete, the personal sub- 
stitute for Christ's own self. And how beautifully is 
this personal presence acknowledged at that first 
council at Jerusalem: " It seemed good to the Holy 
Ghost and to us" — He meeting with and counselling 
with them, and all coming to a common conclusion ! 
How august, yet how precious, such a sense of His 
actual personal presence, when Peter can say to 
Ananias, " Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to 
the Holy Ghost," as though He stood there behind 
Peter as the real presiding officer! Yes, there He 
was, the Holy Spirit, making more than good to 
them Christ's absence, so that in Him their ascended 
Lord had come back to stay and dwell among them 
and in them ; to plan for them, and send them where 
He would have them go; to embolden them in pres- 
ence of foes, and encourage them by stretching forth 
His hand to heal and save. Here, indeed, are the 
Acts of the Spirit, for without Him not a step is 
taken. The Church is the body of Christ, and Christ 
is the head, and the Spirit of Life is the vital power 
filling the body, guiding its movements, and work- 
ing through its members. 



THE NEW MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT. 197 

Within the compass of this book the Spirit may be 
seen exercising all His gracious offices, in the new 
birth of regeneration, the nurture and growth of 
sanctification and edification, the enduement and 
endowment of service, convincing gainsayers and 
converting even persecutors, and both edifying and 
multiplying the Churches. 

So all important is this ministry of the Spirit that 
it is the only law of consecration known in the Acts. 
Every person and place and time which He touches 
becomes sacred. Every worshipper whom He guides 
is a priest, every spot he fills with His presence is a 
sanctuary, and every day becomes sacred because 
His work pervades it. We look in vain here for any 
traces of ecclesiasticism, ceremonialism, sacramen- 
tarianism ; or, if found here, they are only as relics of 
a perverted Judaism or leavening paganism, curios- 
ities, interesting only to antiquarians and befitting a 
museum. 

Prayer and preaching make a sanctuary wherever 
believers gather, and wherever souls are new-born is a 
new shrine of the Nativity. Even temple courts 
have no longer a monopoly of worship. The house 
of Mary, the gateway at Lystra, the jail at Philippi, 
the school of Tyrannus, market-place or theatre, 
street corner or river side, if only praise and prayer 
go up and blessings come down, become hallowed, 
and believers say, ' ' Surely God is in this place ; this 
is none other but the house of God, this is the gate 
of heaven." 

i. One most marked effect of the Spirit's presence 
was seen in the unselfish spirit which He breathed 
into saints. "Sacrifice," as Mr. Froude has said, 
' ' is the first element of religion, and resolves itself 
into the love of God. Let the thought of self 
intrude ; let the painter but pause to consider how 
much reward his work will bring to him, and the 
cunning will forsake his hand, and the power of 
genius will be gone. Excellence is proportioned to 



198 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

the oblivion of self." In witnessing for Christ His 
image so filled disciples as to displace that last idol — 
self; and the Spirit so filled His own temple as to 
pervade it with an atmosphere of self-forgetfulness. 

Observe, for instance, the absence of all money 
considerations or salaried offices. No soft-lined nest 
allured the self-denying worker; no tempting bait 
drew the preacher to bite at the devil's hook of 
greed; no increase of stipend cleared his eye to read 
the doubtful call of Providence. As yet no " crozier 
golden" had made "bishops wooden." Service 
seems to have been, if not gratuitously rendered, sup- 
ported only by free-will offerings. 

Is there no possible voice here for the Church of 
to-day? Is not jealousy for money compensation any 
hindrance to true missionary work? Imagine Philip 
sending ahead a financial agent to secure proper 
remuneration for his evangelistic work in Samaria; 
or Barnabas, that son of consolation, charging so 
much a week for his ministry to new converts at 
Antioch; or Peter, hesitating at Joppa till he knew 
whether the fee for his visit to Cesarea would at 
least cover expenses and entertainment; or Paul, 
taking a collection at Mars Hill, or asking offerings 
to cover rent for his hired house at Rome. While it 
is lawful that they who preach the gospel should live 
of the gospel, that law may easily become a cloak 
for avarice. We must go outside of this short his- 
tory of early missions to find a vindication for grow- 
ing rich upon pew-rents, while a thousand millions 
are dying without the bread of life; or, for paying 
hired singers and operatic " stars" enough every 
year to put three or four more missionaries into the 
field. Satan never won a greater victory than when 
he made the pulpit a horse-block whereby to vault 
into the saddle of ambition ; or the pastorate a com- 
fortable hammock of luxurious ease; or the service to 
souls an avenue to wealth. Such perversions have 
gone far both to destroy the simplicity of a life 



THE NE W MINISTR Y OF THE SPIRIT. 199 

of faith and the power of an unselfish witness to 
Christ. 

This voice and this vision must once more waken 
the Church. Everything depends upon having the 
Spirit with us in His presence and power. 

2. He alone can supply new apostles. What a 
divine voice is heard in the conversion of Saul! 
Suddenly arrested in his persecuting career, threaten- 
ing and slaughter are exchanged for prayer and 
preaching; the fiery breath of the Cilician dragon 
gives place to ardent, fervent witness to Jesus. The 
arch-persecutor and destroyer becomes foremost of 
Apostles and pioneer of missionaries. Hear God's 
voice in this event, proclaiming the sovereignty of 
that grace which snatches from the hands of Jewish 
rulers the chalice full of the poison of their wrath, 
and makes of it God's chosen vessel to bear before 
gentiles and kings, yea, and the very Israel which 
those rulers represented, the hated name of Jesus. 

The Spirit alone can separate His saints for mis- 
sionary service. He is therefore the ultimate Source 
of supplies for the field. The same Barnabas and 
Saul, sent forth by the Church, were also sent forth 
by the Holy Spirit, and in this double fact we have 
God's voice, announcing the twin condition of all 
successful missionary ministry: that the labourers 
shall be closely linked with the Church as its repre- 
sentatives, and be qualified as well as commissioned 
by the Spirit of God. The authority of the Church 
is secondary to that other and higher authority ; but 
both are needful as conditions of the highest service. 
We must not be reckless of forms, but must seek 
a higher than any formal ordination or separation. 
Where workmen are independent and irresponsible, 
amenable to no authority, their zeal is sometimes 
without knowledge, and they are more active than 
efficient. Not a few who entered by no regular door 
but climbed up some other way, have proved more 
adepts in subtraction and division than in addition 



200 



THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 



and multiplication, in missionary mathematics. To 
keep the Church in close touch with the field, the 
missionary must be sent forth by the Church, as one 
who is known, loved, trusted; then the work at 
home and abroad is bound together by a living bond, 
like the nervous system in the body with its effluent 
and refluent action. 

But, on the other hand, no human election, educa- 
tion, ordination, can qualify for God's work. The 
Spirit says, ' ' Separate Me — for the work whereunto / 
have called them." Instead of our appointing labourers 
and then asking for them proper qualifications, must 
we not invert the order? and first waiting to see 
whom the Spirit appoints and anoints, send them 
forth. Laying hands suddenly on no man, laying 
stress on graces more than on gifts, we must value 
above all else the one qualification which makes all 
others needless — namely, that they who go forth 
have been under the tuition and bear the commission 
of the Spirit of God. 

The Church that is prepared by prayer and fast- 
ing to hear and heed the Spirit's voice will be a 
missionary Church. But that is always a still small 
voice, and is drowned by the voices of worldly 
clamour, of contending passions and hollow mirth. 
The Moravian Brotherhood has led the van, both in 
proportion of workers sent forth and of gifts contrib- 
uted to their support, because in the constitution, 
worship and working of the " Unitas Fratrum," the 
Spirit finds less to hinder Him from being heard 
when He speaks. And so it is out of revivals of 
religion that missionary impulses have been born or 
revived. Meetings for fasting and prayer, and for 
deeper spiritual life, have been the matrix where 
missionaries have been moulded. While Laodicean 
churches have lulled their members to sleep with an 
easy religion of the world and a monotonous drone 
of ritual, and religious club-houses have drawn 
disciples into the snares of luxurious indulgence and 



THE NEW MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT. 201 

refined selfishness, the purer, and generally the 
poorer, Churches have been fertile mothers of mis- 
sions all over the world. 

3. The Spirit uses His own schools and teachers 
for training His servants. Witness that significant 
record of the service rendered by the tent-makers of 
Corinth to the eloquent Apollos. When that gifted 
Alexandrian Jew, so mighty in the Septuagint Scrip- 
tures, came to Ephesus, like certain other disciples 
whom Paul found in Diana's capital, he had not got 
beyond John's baptism of repentance. And Pris- 
cilla and Aquila, who made tents for a living, turned 
their home into a theological school for this one 
pupil ; and it was in their humble lodgings that this 
silver tongue was taught to expound the way of God 
more perfectly, and, with a new baptism of the 
Spirit, mightily to convince the Jews that Jesus was 
the Christ. What a lesson on missionary training- 
schools, when some obscure saint gives the finishing 
touch to God's choicest workman ! 

4. The Holy Spirit makes every work a divine 
calling. Tabitha's resuscitation at Joppa was an- 
other voice of God proclaiming that service depends 
on no sphere, and is limited by no narrow circle of 
work. All forms of honest labour may witness for 
God, and alms-deeds have no stereotyped model. 
Dorcas may have been a chronic invalid, dumb or 
palsied and bedridden. But she had left to her, 
hands that could hold a needle; and the coats and 
garments that she made to clothe widows and 
orphans were as true signs of a missionary as the 
sermons of Peter or the tours of Paul. Whoever in 
his calling abides with God, is a missionary. If 
there be first a willing mind it is accepted, according 
to that a man hath and not according to that he hath 
not. Then the willing disciple, like Hercules, is a 
victor, .whether he walks or works, stands or sits. 

5. The Spirit of God is heard all through the 
Acts, teaching that witness to Christ is natural and 



202 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

necessary to a true disciple, and is a condition of His 
full salvation. The tenth chapter of Romans pre- 
sents God's scheme for universal missions: a message 
of faith, heard by the ear, entering the heart, and then 
going out by the gates of speech to find its way to 
another ear, another heart, another tongue; and so 
each hearer, who becomes a believer, becomes also 
a witness. What can be more sublimely simple and 
more quickly effectual ! A word of life winging its 
way from lip to ear, from ear to heart, from heart to 
lip, and so in endless circles till the last unbeliever 
hears the message. 

Here is an Apostolic succession, indeed! And 
observe that he who hears and believes, but does 
not confess and proclaim, breaks up the succession, 
and like a wheel whose inaction clogs the machinery, 
so far as he is concerned, stops all the other wheels 
and disturbs the divine order. He who believes but 
does not testify, is not only hindering the growth of 
the Church, but its continuance ; for without witnesses 
there can be no new generation of believers. Mis- 
sions are the nursing-mother of converts and 
Churches. Love seeks not inlets, but outlets, and is 
jealous of limits. 

6. The Holy Spirit's administration in the Church 
will make both giving and going easy. He so 
unites saints in one body that members have care 
one for another, and move together, in common 
work for common ends. 

The dearth which Agabus foretold was a voice of 
God, calling disciples to send relief to hungry saints 
in Judea. Infinitely more, then, is world-wide 
famine of the Bread of Life, God's call for prompt 
and ample provision for poor and starving souls. 
All believers form one community, and suffer or 
rejoice together. There must be no schism in the 
body. And the whole race is by nature one family, 
and what some lack, the surpUis of others must 
supply, until, as John Howard said, "Our lux- 



THE NE W MINISTR Y OF THE SPIRIT. 203 

uries give way to the comforts of the poor; our 
comforts to their necessities, and even our necessities 
to their extremities." No want must plead in vain. 

Each, according to ability, should contribute will- 
ingly and cheerfully; and remoteness of abode 
must become neighbourhood of need. When this 
lesson is learned as only the Spirit can teach it, even 
our poverty will abound unto the riches of our liber- 
ality. Nature and sin have made all men akin. 
" He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse 
him; " man's inhumanity to man still keeps countless 
thousands mourning their own awful destitution. 
Missionary meetings must not only " work up " the 
missionary spirit, but " work it down," deeper and 
deeper, till it reaches our selfishness and casts it out. 
To this only the Holy Spirit is equal. When He 
actually resides in the Church, and presides over it, 
every appeal in behalf of lost souls becomes a plea 
in Jesus' name; nay, Christ becomes the pleader, 
and it becomes easier to respond than to refuse. 

A new standard of giving will be adopted by the 
Church whenever the Spirit once more pervades it 
with His living power. Greed is to-day dominant 
even among disciples. It is changing some of them 
into coin, so that they have a metallic ring and will 
drop into the coffin with a chink. The ministry of 
money is not understood or appreciated; men are 
purse-proud because they have no sense of steward- 
ship ; they think of their gains as their own, and of giv- 
ing as an act of merit; and so become arrogant and 
sometimes defiant in their avarice. How quickly 
when God's Spirit possesses us do we see that noth- 
ing is our own, and even we ourselves are slaves paid 
for in blood and made free at a great price ; and so 
we, and all we have, belong to our Redeemer ! To 
such a man hoarded gains seem heaps of cankered 
coin whose rust is an accusation. 

There is another and more awful side to this mat- 
ter. Ananias and Sapphira died for the sin of sacri- 



204 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

lege in trifling with their stewardship. Achan was 
guilty of a similar sin and suffered a like judicial 
death. Something devoted to the Lord and His by 
right was kept back from Him for selfish ends. 
That was all! But at these two turning points in 
sacred history there stand two cairns of black stones 
— mute warnings that just there is the point of 
peril, where the step, the slip, may prove fatal. 
When God in any way calls for our gifts, at our peril 
we withhold; no sudden death-blow may fall, but a 
subtle putrefaction or silent petrifaction attacks char- 
acter and leaves spiritual life to awful decay and 
deadness. 

7. When God's Spirit moves in the Church there 
is a holy cessation of all undue carefulness as to 
results. However much we rejoice over converts, 
we are not unduly depressed when Paul's experience 
at Rome is repeated; when notwithstanding untiring 
toil and testimony in preaching and teaching, some 
believe not, or even harden themselves in rejection 
of the truth. 

To some the same divine word which is a savour of 
life to others, becomes a savour of death unto death ; 
not wings by which to soar, but weights by which 
to sink. God drops down roses of paradise, but when 
they touch hard hearts, they become like burning coals 
of fire. The book of the Acts is a narrative of mis- 
sionary labours, but records as many failures as suc- 
cesses. But in God's eyes our failures are often 
successes, and our successes are often failures. 
Duty is ours — let Him take care of all other 
issues. 

The New Acts of the Apostles abounds in voices 
and visions of God. But not every one hears or 
sees. Once He spoke in thunders, now in whispers ; 
once He was seen in flashes of light, now He reveals 
Himself only to the vision of faith. They who walk 
the crowded thoroughfares with the worldly and 
the frivolous, amid the din of Mammon worshippers 



THE NEW MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT. 205 

and the blaze of fashion's superficial glory, will 
neither hear the voice nor see the vision. 

The drift of the age is toward the idolatry of self, 
and no man can serve two masters. We must make 
our choice. He who often seeks God in the secret 
place and keeps silence before Him, will hear voices 
that wax louder and clearer until the closet of 
communion becomes the audience-chamber of the 
King ; and will get such glimpses of the glory of God, 
that to him a door will again be opened into Heaven 
itself. 



Part IV. 
THE NEW CONVERTS AND MARTYRS 



THE MIRACLE OF CONVERSION. 

Art may borrow models from nature and imitate 
her ; but life itself defies all rivalry. Between Alexan- 
dria and Cairo is a row of palms, planted at equal 
intervals and meeting overhead, which suggests 
whence architecture gets its columnar forms with 
their capitals and arches. But however elegant and 
graceful, sculptured forms are stiff and dead. God's 
palms differ from art's pillars, for they are living 
growths. 

Conversion is God's perpetual miracle. There are 
transformations in the lives and souls of men which 
cannot be counterfeited. They are not wrought by 
human hands as by hammer and chisel; but are 
growths of a hidden seed of new life, the planting of 
the Lord that He might be glorified. Reformation 
of outward conduct may be due not to grace but to 
selfishness, for manners and morals are a passport to 
good society, while profligacy is the foe of respect- 
ability. Amid the death-shade of heathenism, a 
high type of morality has been sometimes found, be- 
cause it was believed to be the price of favour with 
the gods. But regeneration, which changes not only 
outward habits and conduct, but the inward nature and 
character, so that new tastes, affections and affinities 
control ; the conversion which is transformation, which 
turns hate to love, and former preference to abhor- 
rence — this is re-creation — as truly a miracle as the 
first creation. This is God's everlasting sign, never 
cut off, whatever other signs fail. 

The Ethiopian cannot change his skin, or the leop- 
ard his spots ; but if they could, the one would still 
be an Ethiopian and the other a leopard. Differ- 
ences of race, genus, species, lie deeper down than 

209 



210 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

the colour or markings of skin. But for Ethiopian to 
become Caucasian or American, or leopard to be- 
come lamb, means a miracle. 

In the Acts of the Apostles, wonders of transform- 
ing grace constantly confront the reader. The open- 
ing miracle of Pentecost was a new creation on a 
grand scale, of three thousand souls in one day. Such 
miracles of changed character as these pages record are 
meant as a type and prophecy of things to come, and 
hence instances enough are given to represent all 
future cases and classes of converts. Pentecostal 
converts may stand for the multitudes that at one 
time flock like doves to their windows. The " great 
company of priests" who became obedient to the 
faith, hint the gospel triumphs in making inroads 
upon the very shrines and temples of false gods, and 
bearing away their priests as trophies. The eunuch's 
conversion forecasts thousands who, led by the word 
of God, feel after God and need some man to guide 
them. Saul is an example of the power which can 
turn foe into friend, and persecutor into Apostle. 

Side by side with Saul's conversion we may set 
that of the Ephesian magians as a sign of divine 
power. 

Around that famous fane of Diana, which was one 
of the seven world-wonders, the masters of curious 
arts naturally gathered. Yet, so mightily grew the 
word of God and prevailed, that even these seers 
and sorcerers confessed their tricks of trade and 
impostures upon popular credulity, and crowned 
their confession by burning before all men, the 
costly books which contained their secrets, and 
whose market value was a fortune for those days — 
fifty thousand pieces of silver ! 

With Apostolic days we associate a series of such 
marvels of convicting and converting grace. This 
brief book of the Acts records some twelve indi- 
vidual cases, and no two alike: The cripple at the 
beautiful gate, the eunuch of Ethiopia, Saul of 



THE MIRACLE OE CONVERSION. 211 

Tarsus, the centurion of Cesarea, the procon- 
sul of Cyprus, Lydia and the jailer at Philippi, 
Dionysius and Damaris at Athens, Crispus at 
Corinth, and possibly Timothy and ^Eneas. The 
ignorant and the cultured, Jews and gentiles, men 
and women, those in high life and in low life, the 
best and the worst, yield alike to the gospel, to 
show that the message is adapted to reach all 
classes. 

Furthermore, the emphasis is unmistakably upon 
multitudes. The evident intent is to impress upon 
the reader the fact that, even within the first genera- 
tion, the world proved a fertile field for gospel har- 
vests. At least twenty times the stress is put, 
though not unduly, upon the large numbers of con- 
verts. At Pentecost, three thousand; soon after, 
five thousand; a little later, "multitudes both of 
men and women;" again, the number of disciples 
was multiplying; and again, "was multiplied in 
Jerusalem, greatly, and a great multitude of the 
priests were obedient to the faith." In Samaria 
multitudes gave heed with one accord to Philip; all 
they that dwelt at Lydda and Sharon turned to the 
Lord; at Joppa, "many believed in the Lord" at 
the raising of Dorcas ; at Cesarea ' ' all who heard the 
word " believed ; "a great number" at Antioch in 
Syria; "many Jews and proselytes at Antioch in 
Pisidia; at Iconium "a great multitude both of 
Jews and Greeks;" "many disciples" at Derbe; at 
Thessalonica, "a great multitude of devout Greeks, 
and not a few of chief women;" of Bereans "many 
believed;" and likewise of Corinthians, as also of 
Ephesian magians. The Lord made daily additions 
to believers, so that James at Jerusalem could point 
to " many thousands " (myriads) of believing Jews. 
Such repetitions have meaning. Converts multi- 
plied in large numbers; large households with ser- 
vants or retainers, and even villages and wider dis- 
tricts yielded to the gracious sway of the Spirit. 



212 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

The power of the truth wielded by such a divine 
arm is massive — Jerusalem, Samaria, Joppa, Lydda, 
Sharon, Cesarea, the two Antiochs, Iconium and 
Derbe, Thessalonica and Berea, Corinth and Ephesus 
feel the mighty movings of grace. 

The new chapters of the Acts add records scarcely 
less wonderful. Individual examples quite as 
marked, as varied, as significant, abound, to prove 
converting power, and in every field multitudes 
have at times been gathered. Of this we shall cite 
examples and proofs; but here again the embarrass- 
ment of riches compels a resort to the principle of 
selection. First, a few marked individual instances 
will be cited from countries, communities and sur- 
roundings widely different ; and then we shall glance 
over broader fields, where results are seen in the 
transformation of whole communities. 

In explaining the parable of the sower our Lord 
prophesies a yield of thirty, sixty, an hundredfold 
increase. It sometimes seems as though His words 
had already been fulfilled. The Pentecostal gather- 
ing of one hundred and twenty had added to them, 
that same day, about three thousand souls — a thirty- 
fold increase. The South Sea work, from 1817 to 
1839, and that in the Hawaiian Islands especially, 
probably exceeded any previous in-gathering in num- 
ber, variety and rapidity of results; and this may 
represent sixtyfold increase. Half a century later, 
the greatest single harvest of Christian history was 
reaped in Southern India, and may well stand for the 
hundredfold. The new chapters of the Acts con- 
tinue the older record, and chronicle similar marvels. 
Not only do they record individual conversions 
equally remarkable, but they tell us again of multi- 
tudes turning to the Lord. 



II. 

NEW CONVERTS AND MARTYRS. 
Kayarnak — The Converted Eskimo. 

Missions among the stolid, stupid Greenlanders 
seemed for long years as hopeless as melting the ice- 
bergs of the Frozen Pole. One hundred and sixty 
years ago, Matthew Stach wrote home : ' ' We have 
found here what we sought, heathens who know not 
God, who care for nothing but catching seals, fish 
and reindeer, and for this purpose are constantly 
roving about." 

The Eskimo religion was the lowest type of 
paganism. Without temples or idols, they believed 
in a great spirit, Tongarsuk, and priests or wizards, 
his Angekoks. Fear seemed to be their only re- 
ligious emotion, and their superstitions fostered it. 
Christian truth had apparently no power to impress 
them, and the native tongue had no words to convey 
spiritual ideas. Not one missionary in a hundred 
would have borne what Matthew Stach and Frederick 
Boehnisch and the heroic John Beck who had 
already been in prison for the Lord's sake, bore 
from those natives. The Eskimos shunned them 
with aversion, blamed them for the scourge of small- 
pox which had raged for nine months and made New 
Herrnhut the centre of a desert, and they adopted a 
systematic course of annoyance. Whatever the mis- 
sionaries said, was travestied and ridiculed; what- 
ever they did, was caricatured and grotesquely 
mimicked. In the midst of earnest exhortations, 
they feigned sleep and snored; or they would feign 
pious desire to hear hymns sung, and then drown the 
singing with howls and beating of drums. But farce 
and comedy were not sufficient — and personal insult 



214 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

and violence threatened a tragedy. For five years 
they sought to wear out the patience of the mission- 
aries by a series of persecutions. They laid siege to 
their huts, broke their furniture, stole their food and 
manuscripts, pelted them with stones, and broke their 
boat which was their last hope of subsistence. And 
when starvation was threatening these noble Mora- 
vians, with monstrous ingratitude and cruelty they 
would not even sell them one morsel of food, though 
they themselves had abundance. 

Seldom has mission work held out less hope. The 
Eskimos were repulsive dwarfs, with minds and 
hearts even worse dwarfed than their bodies. Their 
looks were ugly, their habits filthy. Mothers licked 
their children as cats do their kittens, and they all 
wallowed like swine in the mire of their uncleanness. 
Hans Egede had found all his efforts for their up- 
lifting met by resistance, doggedly stubborn and 
malicious. They invoked the aid of their Angekoks 
to destroy him with their wizard arts, and when these 
failed they thought he must be chief of wizards, as 
his Master has been called Prince of Demons. But 
the motto of these brave men was, " Lose thy way, 
but lose not thy faith," and they held on to God and 
persevered in prayer. 

The first sign that God's summer sun was melting 
these icy hearts was when John Beck's infant daugh- 
ter drew their eyes to the beauty of Christian home- 
life. Once more the prophecy was fulfilled: "And a 
little child shall lead them." Her lisping lips some- 
how softened their rudeness and warmed their cold- 
ness; and when the Eskimo mothers heard her sing- 
ing holy hymns, they yearned to hear their little 
ones sing like her, and began themselves to learn 
those simple gospel songs which Beck and Boehnisch 
had written in the native tongue. 

Then in 1738, as Beck was in his humble hut 
preparing an Eskimo Bible, a company of Green- 
landers from the South came in and watched him at 



NE W CON VER TS A ND MA R T YR S. 215 

his work, wondering that a piece of paper could be 
made to hear, remember, and repeat the words of 
God. He read to them from his manuscript transla- 
tion of the gospels, and once more the story of the 
cross broke hard hearts. One of these men, Kayar- 
nak, came nearer and looking up into Beck's face, 
said, with pathetic earnestness, ''How was that? 
Tell it to me once more; for I too want to be 
saved." 

The ice was breaking, and the long winter was 
feeling the first touch of spring. Beck's soul, so 
tried during these years of fruitless toil, could 
scarcely believe what his ears heard. There was at 
last one seeker after God. His joy overflowed in 
tears and in speech; again and more fully he told 
the tale that never loses its charm. And when his 
fellow-missionaries returned from work in the dis- 
tricts round about, they found him in the midst of a 
group of Greenlanders, whose open ears drank in his 
words, while their hands were laid on their mouths, 
to express amazement at the strange and wonderful 
things, never before heard. 

From that day Kayarnak could be found daily at 
the mission hut, with cheeks wet with tears, with 
heart opened to attend unto the things which were 
spoken, and yearning to be taught, as no Green- 
lander had ever been known to yearn before him. 
He clung fondly to his Moravian teachers, remaining 
with some twenty companions, through the winter, 
and aiding in the translation of the gospels. On 
Easter morning, 1739, in presence of a large assem- 
bly of natives, he, with his wife and two children, 
confessed Christ in baptism. And so the first fruits 
of that long-delayed harvest-field began to be 
gathered. 

The return of spring compelled Kayarnak to start 
again on his search for seals ; for the ocean is the 
field which the Eskimo cultivates. His boat's keel 
is his plough, and seals and fish are his crop. 



216 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

With no little fear Beck and his brethren let this new- 
convert go forth to his work with heathen compan- 
ions. But a year later he came back, not only hav- 
ing fast hold upon his newly-found Jesus, but 
bringing with him his brother and his family, having 
been so long absent in hope to gain them as converts 
to the Lord. 

The conversion of Kayarnak we have thus given 
in detail, because it marks a new era in missions to 
that north land. Beholding this man healed, the 
opposers of the gospel could say nothing against it. 
The miracle wrought in his changed heart and life 
put a sudden stop to the mockery that had made 
Stach's heart burn with holy indignation ; and the 
spirit of earnest inquiry, which flamed in Kayarnak' s 
breast, kindled a like spirit among the people. 
Instead of keeping aloof, or coming to scoff and 
jeer, they became constant and reverent hearers, and 
learned and loved the sacred songs and gospel read- 
ings which Beck had written for them. 

The whole life of the people now underwent a 
change. Brutal cruelty gave place to considerate 
kindness; past ill-treatment was confessed, and 
forgiveness was sought; care for the wants and 
woes of others, and even of strangers, took the 
place of heartless indifference. For instance, if the 
women of Greenland hated anything it was suckling 
a motherless babe ; yet even this they were found 
doing gladly, so sweetly had the gospel taught them 
the grace of unselfish service to the most needy and 
helpless. If their language had no word for grati- 
tude, their transformed conduct made up for the lack 
of their speech by its own peculiar dialect; and 
the newly converted natives found some words to 
express their new views and feelings which their for- 
eign teachers had long sought in vain. It need not 
be said that the charms of the Angekoks were now 
broken and the reign of superstition was at an end. 

Kayarnak, the learner, became also the teacher. 



NEW CONVERTS AND MARTYRS. 217 

He taught even the missionaries; he helped them so 
to understand the language as to correct the errors 
and blunders of earlier teaching and translating ; and 
they learned from him a still more valuable lesson ; 
for he led them to stop trying to convince unbeliev- 
ers by mere argument, and to trust to the patient and 
prayerful presentation of the mere facts of redemp- 
tion ; to depend not on the logic that appeals to the 
reason, but on the demonstration of the Holy Spirit. 
Kayarnak himself was permitted only to lead the 
way in this new era. At the end of a year of most 
exemplary piety, amidst a living testimony, that in 
its faith and fervour and rich experience was apos- 
tolic, he fell asleep; but the work went on. In 1747, 
twenty-five years after Hans Egede had landed at 
Ball's River, the first church building in Greenland 
was erected, where three hundred were wont to 
gather. As the Moravian Brethren saw the church 
and school and singing class; as they beheld the 
very land itself yielding to culture, and the changed 
aspect of the whole country ; and most of all as they 
saw the desert of human hearts turning into the gar- 
den of the Lord, they could only say, "The Lord 
hath done more for us than we knew how to pray 
for. A stream of life is now poured upon this 
people. As we speak or sing of the sufferings of 
Jesus they are so sensibly affected that tears of love 
and joy roll down their cheeks. Though they may 
happen to be from four to six leagues away, almost 
all come to our Sunday service; and candidates for 
baptism can scarcely wait patiently for the happy 
hour." 

Other missions and missionaries followed, and prog- 
ress was in geometrical ratio, for at Lichtenfels 
four years saw as much advance as fourteen at New 
Herrnhut, and the largest of the congregations was 
gathered at Lichtenau. For thirty years John Beck 
was spared to watch the seed which his own hand 
had sown ripening into harvests. He had made a 



218 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

solemn vow to follow the Lord wholly in that land 
of ice and snow, to do all and bear all as unto Him 
— and sacredly had he kept his covenant. He had 
asked one soul saved, as the seal of God's approval, 
and that prayer was answered so abundantly that all 
the settlements throughout Greenland are now 
Christian, and it is now forty-five years ago since 
at Proven the last professed pagan died. Kayarnak 
was the leader of a host ; and Beck's Bible became 
the base-block on which was built a new Christian 
State. Over the icy castles of the frozen north floats 
the flag of the cross, and again the prayer and pains 
of the missionary have their recompense of reward ! 

Africaner — The Hottentot Terror. 

Africaner was known as the " Bonaparte of South 
Africa. " This notorious Hottentot chief had become 
the terror of the whole country. The Boers had at 
some time wronged or offended him, and in revenge 
for their insult or injustice, with characteristic rage, 
he carried on a constant, cruel, relentless war with 
the natives living near the mouth of the Orange 
River. He was a terrible foe, feared by everybody, 
deaf to remonstrance and appeal. He stole cattle, 
he burned kraals, he took captives only to enslave 
those whom he did not destroy. 

When in 1817 Moffat started for Africaner's kraal 
his friends warned him that this savage monster 
would make a drum-skin of his hide and a drinking- 
cup of his skull. But the noble hero of Namaqua- 
land was not to be dissuaded even by the tears of 
the motherly dame who wept for the danger and 
death into which he was rushing. 

Africaner was originally a Hottentot in the ser- 
vice of a Dutch farmer at Tulbach, near Cape Town. 
His usual work was the care of cattle; but he and 
his sons were often sent on raids of plunder against 
unarmed tribes further inland, a good school of rob- 
bery and of murder, where this Hottentot proved a 



NEW CONVERTS AND MARTYRS. 219 

quick learner ; and on a slight provocation lie shot his 
employer and his wife. Then Africaner fled as an 
outlaw, across the Orange River, keeping near 
enough to harass the Boers, but far enough away to 
be safe from arrest and punishment. From this time 
his hand, like that of Ishmael, was against every 
man. It mattered little whether white or black, 
native or foreigner, Namaqua, Hottentot, or Boer; 
whoever crossed his track he hunted down like a 
wild beast, and fire and sword were his merciless 
weapons. The authorities of the colony would have 
paid any reasonable price for his head ; but where was 
the man daring enough to attempt to capture or kill 
such a monster? It was like fighting a dragon. He 
might tolerate missionaries, but they could not hope 
to change him, and gave it up in despair. 

Robert Moffat won this hard-hearted monster, 
and it was by the same old gospel that has broken 
so many other hearts of stone and melted so many 
other hearts of steel. Into the very soul of Africaner 
this truth of God entered, and until the day of his 
death there was no break in the harmony of this 
strange friendship. During Moffat's sickness, it 
was Africaner whose hands ministered to his needs, 
furnished his food and the best of milk. And when 
Moffat found it needful to go to Cape Town, although 
there was still a premium upon his head, Africaner 
went with him. That whole journey is one of the 
romances of history. When the missionary stopped 
on his way at the house of a farmer who had been 
his host as he journeyed to Namaqualand, he had no 
little difficulty in convincing him that he was Moffat, 
for the man had heard that the Hottentot chief had 
murdered him, and knew a man who had "seen his 
bones." But when he saw Africaner, who had killed 
his uncle, and witnessed the change in his whole 
character and demeanour, the farmer could only ex- 
claim, "O God, what cannot Thy grace do! What 
a miracle of Thy power ! " 



220 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

The sensation produced by Africaner's appearance 
at Cape Town defies description. Here was an out- 
law, a robber, a murderer, for whose capture such 
large rewards had been vainly offered, himself 
coming back, risking arrest, trusting himself among 
them, a changed man. The lion had become a lamb. 
The governor sent for him, and the reward offered 
for the seizure of the outlaw was actually spent in 
gifts for himself and presents for his people. As 
Moffat found it vain to attempt further work in 
Namaqualand, Africaner went with him to the 
Bechuanas. He first moved Moffat's goods and 
cattle and sheep to his new home at Lattakoo, and 
then, having faithfully fulfilled his trust, went back 
for his own movables, that he might settle beside his 
beloved teacher. But his end was near, and he died 
shortly after at his old kraal. 

Kapiolani — The Hawaiian Female Chief. 

Kapiolani, of the Hawaiian Islands, was the most 
noted among female chiefs, and had large landed 
possessions. When first seen by the missionaries she 
was seated on a rock oiling her person, and was 
found to be dark-minded, superstitious, intemperate, 
repulsive. Yet, when the gospel touched her heart, 
this degraded daughter of heathen kings was found 
attending the place of prayer, becomingly dressed, 
dignified in deportment, devout and meek, but 
resolute and courageous. She received the messen- 
gers of the Lord at her house with the courteous 
cordiality of Lydia, and with them planned for the 
improvement of her own people in condition and 
character with the ardour and candour of Catherine 
of Sienna. Like Catherine, she was inspired with 
the heroism of a reformer. From the sanctuary of 
Keave, the sacred house of deposit, she bore away the 
royal relics which were worshipped with divine 
honours, and hid them in inaccessible caves near the 



NE W CON VER TS AND MAR T YRS. 221 

head of the bay in the side of a precipitous rock. 
When Charles S. Stewart, chaplain of the United 
States ship of war, " Vincennes," was leaving Kaa- 
waloa at midnight, she insisted on going with 
him to the shore, that with warm hand-shake and 
many tears, she might accompany him to the ship, as 
Ephesian elders did with Paul. This heroic woman, 
with her husband, strove to uproot the most tena- 
cious idolatrous notions and customs. Without 
counting costs to herself, she put down murder and 
infanticide, theft and Sabbath-breaking, lust and 
drunkenness, and sought to reform morals and re- 
ligion. And when, in 1841, she died, had no other 
gem for the crown of the great Conqueror been dug 
up on Hawaiian soil, this woman's conversion suf- 
ficed to prove that the gospel is, as truly as in Apos- 
tolic days, God's power unto salvation. 

One act of her life will ever stand out in conspicu- 
ous pre-eminence. She knew that the famous crater 
of Kilauea was believed by the people to be the 
residence of the awful goddess, Pele. The super- 
stitious hold of this goddess upon the people must 
be broken. And she determined to lay hold upon 
the very pillars of this temple of the Hawaiian Dagon 
and bring down this superstition into ruin. In 1825 
she made a journey of a hundred miles to this volcanic 
crater, and there openly defied this false deity, at her 
throne and shrine. She not only refused to offer even 
the sacred bean as a propitiatory offering or in any 
way avert or appease the wrath and power of Pele, 
but she made the crater ring with the praises of Jeho- 
vah, as she sang hymns to the only true God. She had 
made the journey on foot with numerous attendants, 
who were awe-struck at the open indignity with 
which she defied the dreaded goddess. And those who 
know with what awful terrors such pagan deities 
are clothed in the common mind, and with what 
tenacity these superstitions continue to hold even 
professed converts, can imagine what holy courage 



222 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

faith must have begotten in this Hawaiian heroine. 
It was eleven hundred years before her (723), when 
Boniface at Geismar in Upper Hesse, boldly, with 
axe in hand, hewed down the gigantic and venerable 
oak sacred to Thor, the Thunderer, defying the super- 
stitions which held the people in bondage, and the 
idolatrous associations of centuries; and, as blow 
after blow fell, the pagans looked to see the bolt of 
the avenger smite the profaner of his sacred grove 
dead. That was a heroic deed, but Boniface had never 
been under the thrall of this idolatry, and had no 
superstitions of his own to fight. But this woman 
was herself only just delivered from the chains of 
lifelong idolatry, and had no band of clergy around 
her to encourage and share her act of open profa- 
nation. 



Kho-thah-byu — The Karen Evangelist. 

One man is selected out of the Karens, or wild 
men of Burma, as an example of the transforming 
power of the gospel, mainly because he was the first 
convert among his people. He was a poor man and 
a slave, and one of the degraded people of a debased 
nation, a man of very ordinary abilities, and yet most 
useful and uninterrupted in his labours. The first 
of his nation to be baptized, he lived to draw hun- 
dreds and thousands to follow his own steps. He is 
a singular example of what ordinary faculties will 
accomplish when wholly consecrated. He aroused 
the whole nation to Christianity. Born in 1778, and 
baptized in 1828, he was fifty years old when he took 
up the cross. Until he was fifteen, he was at home, 
but wicked, wilful, ungovernable. After he left 
his parents he became a robber and a murderer ; and 
was, no doubt, at least accessory to no less than 
thirty murders. His natural temper was vicious. 

After the Burmese war he went to Rangoon, and 



NE W CON VER TS AND MART YR S. 223 

got into Mr. Hough's service, by whom the first 
religious impressions were made upon his mind. He 
followed Adoniram Judson to Amhurst, and was 
taken into the family of Ko-shway-bay, who, having 
paid for him a debt, took him into his family as a 
servant, according to Burmese law which makes the 
debtor slave to the creditor. His master, who was 
also an inquirer, became discouraged with regard to 
doing him any good, and could not retain him in the 
family on account of his immoral character. He 
was, however, transferred to the family of the Rev. 
Francis Mason, and soon after began to pay atten- 
tion to religious tilings, though he had fits of violent 
temper. Soon signs of repentance appeared, and 
faith in Jesus. His dark mind slowly took hold of 
the truths of Christianity, and his violent temper 
often caused him great discouragement and depres- 
sion, and deferred his baptism. He was, however, 
baptized on the 16th May, 1828, as we have said, at 
fifty years of age. He had already studied with 
great diligence, in order, to read the Burman Bible, 
and became immediately very zealous to bear witness 
to the Saviour whom he had found. Immediately 
after his baptism, accompanied by two of his coun- 
trymen, he left Tavoy to visit the Karens in the val- 
ley of Tenasserim, preaching and explaining the 
catechism, and with immediate results in the con- 
version of other Karens, Moung Khway being the 
first. 

Nearly a whole village ultimately became Christian 
through the influences started by this converted 
Karen. From this time, so long as his strength 
allowed, he was accustomed to make tours among 
his brethren, from which he would return with con- 
verts prepared for baptism, the numbers running- 
all the way up from six to one hundred and fifty. 
He obtained the ears of the people of whole vil- 
lages, and remarkable changes took place under 
his ministry. He was unwearied in labour, would 



224 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

often talk of the gospel till near midnight, and 
absolutely spared not himself. His preaching car- 
ried with it conviction, and compelled others to say, 
' ' Truly this is the word of God. " After Mr. Boardman 
had preached in Rurman he would interpret as much 
of the discourse as he could remember into Karen. 
Though a naturally weak man he became magnani- 
mous, because the Spirit of Christ and the love of 
souls inspired him. His wife was likewise baptized in 
1828. She had formerly been very ignorant and 
very wicked, but the influence of her husband had 
been blessed to her entire transformation. His 
tours lasted from a week to six months, spent in itin- 
erating with perpetual labour, day and night. Most 
amazing results often followed his ministry. For in- 
stance, when the mother of the baptized Karen head- 
man died, in fear that other relatives of the deceased 
would wish to perform heathenish customs in con- 
nection with her burial, he proposed to erect a 
preaching zayat near the grave, and invited Kho- 
thah-byu to hold forth the word of life there. At one 
time this Karen evangelist projected a journey into 
Siam, and actually started to visit the Karens in 
that country, but was not suffered to cross the bor- 
der, and was compelled to return. 

After Mr. Boardman became unable to labour, the 
whole care of the church and the instruction of the 
inquirers devolved on this simple-minded convert. 
He taught school and showed diligence in every 
department of labour. His pupils could repeat ver- 
batim whole Burman tracts. His boldness in attack- 
ing idolatry was remarkable. The town of Shen 
Mouktee is famous for the idol which it contains, 
which was said to have grown miraculously from a 
little brass image of a few inches high, to the full size 
of a man. It was as sacred to the Burmans as Diana 
was to the Ephesians. When this old man had been 
left to rest in one of the zayats he was found sur- 
rounded by a large congregation of Burmans, and, 



NEW CONVERTS AND MARTYRS. 225 

holding them under a peculiar fascination, that was 
compared to the influence of a serpent over a brood of 
chickens. And the first words that were heard by 
Dr. Mason as he approached, were, " Your God was a 
black kula;" that is, a foreigner. The peculiar look 
which accompanied these words could never be for- 
gotten by the beholder. If ever a man hated idolatry, 
that man was Kho-thah-byu. No fatigue, no obstacles, 
could prevent his seeking out his fellow-countrymen, 
and when he could not reach the Karens he would 
attack the Burmans and their idolatry with unmerci- 
ful energy, utterly heedless of their ridicule. His 
ruling passion was for preaching, and once, when he 
was in danger of losing his life by drowning, his only 
solicitude was lest he might never more preach the 
gospel to the Karens. He was not only a man of 
very ordinary abilities, but he was actually, in some 
things, ignorant to the verge of stupidity. His own 
pupils outran their teacher in their attainments. 
His adaptation was for a pioneer, and God permitted 
him to become, in succession, the first Karen preacher 
to his countrymen in the districts of Tavoy, Maul- 
main, Rangoon and Aracan. The son born to him 
in Tavoy he named Joseph, the first Christian name 
ever conferred by native Karens; and his great 
desire was that that son might live to become a 
preacher to his people. 

In his tours he sometimes had to wade streams to 
his armpits, and sometimes through mud and water 
where the rain filled the hollows; yet nothing could 
discourage or dismay him. He was one among a 
thousand. Sometimes the Karens thronged his 
house so that there was danger of breaking it down, 
and their importunity left him no chance for needed 
physical rest, and scarcely for food. He was chief 
of all the native Karen assistants employed in the 
carrying forward of the mission. When his days of 
itinerating were past by reason of rheumatism and 
blindness, it was to him the greatest of all his afflic- 



226 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

tions that he was unable to carry on active work: 
and when at Sandoway the summons came for him 
to cease from his labours, on the 9th of Septem- 
ber, 1840, at sixty-two years of age, he departed 
without an anxious thought as to his future state. 
The blue mountains of Pegu, often the first land 
seen in India by the approaching mariner, remain his 
monument; and the Christian villages that adorn 
their sides constitute his epitaph. If he hated idola- 
try, he loved the gospel with equal intensity ; always 
planning some new excursion, never so happy as to 
find hearers for his message. The leading truths of 
the Bible became familiar as his alphabet, and he 
sought in every sermon to bring into prominence the 
vicarious death of Christ. Among his converts there 
was a more thorough knowledge of justification by 
faith than can be found among an equal number 
even in Christian countries. 

While it is true that his work was a pioneer work, 
breaking up the fallow ground and casting in the 
seed, yet few who have devoted their entire lives to 
such labours have been the instruments of gathering 
as many converts to Christ. He idolized his work. It 
was the only business to which he attached the least 
importance ; and it was this which constituted the 
charm of his life. His absorption in preaching made 
him quite insensible to external objects, and he has 
been known in preaching to be forsaken by every 
individual soon after the commencement of his re- 
marks, and yet continue with such interest as though 
he were preaching to listening thousands; and when, 
at the close of his discourse he found himself alone, 
without discouragement he would, with renewed zeal 
and ardour, enter upon his work with the very next 
individuals he met. He was utterly unceremonious 
in introducing religious themes, regarding no time 
or place unsuitable, and though his mental resources 
were limited they were well directed. He concen- 
trated all his powers upon his work. His success 



NEW CONVERTS AND MARTYRS. 227 

can be accounted for by just four words, " God was 
with him." He was a man of prayer. It was his 
practice to read and pray aloud. He has been 
known to spend all days and, like his Master, whole 
nights in this way; and, however ignorant upon 
other subjects, the moment he touched his favourite 
theme he surprised all his hearers. His baptism in 
1828 was the commencement of the mission, which in 
success exceeds perhaps any other, except that to the 
Hawaiian Islands. He was never ordained, because 
he lacked a well regulated mind, and to the last was 
liable to outbreaks of evil temper, which caused him 
great sorrow and humiliation. 

When the year 1878 completed the centenary of 
his birth, and the semi-centennial of his conversion, 
a large new institute building was dedicated to the 
service of God and Christian education, under the 
name of the Kho-thah-byu Memorial Hall. That is 
the true monument of his twelve years of earnest and 
successful labour. It cost nearly 50,000 rupees, and 
was the result of ten years of gathered contribu- 
tions among the Karens of Bassein. It was dedi- 
cated without debt in the month of May. It stands 
on a fine knoll in the outskirts of the town, and is 
visible for a long distance from the north and west. 
Its entire length on the south front is 134 feet. The 
east front and wing measure 131 feet, the west side 
with the wing 104 feet. The tower is sixty feet 
high, surmounted by a Greek cross, and on the wall 
of the south verandah, in carved, gilded, Burmese 
characters, we read this inscription : 

" 1828 — Kho-thah-byu — 1878." 



Ranavalona II. — Madagascar's Queen. 

When Robert Drury gave the first full account of 
the savages of this great island, it was under the 
despotism of wickedness, and might was the only 



228 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

right. Idolatry of the most degraded kind existed, 
and the island was the scene of perpetual war, lust, 
slavery and superstition. Thousands of natives were 
sold every year, and the spot where they caught the 
last glimpse of home, as they went into hopeless 
exile, even yet bears the pathetic name, ' ' The weeping- 
place of the Hovas." Vices were treated as virtues. 
Punishments were savagely contrived to inflict long 
torture. The people were a nation of thieves and 
liars. There were no homes. A native never spoke 
of family or family ties. The pen refuses to record 
what was there seen and heard. It should be written 
in blood and registered in hell. Female virtue was 
of so little account that it did not even affect the 
legitimacy of offspring. Idols so filled the land that 
anything which was not comprehended, though it 
were but a machine or a photograph, was deified. 
The French governor of the Isle of Bourbon told the 
first missionaries that they might as well attempt to 
convert sheep, oxen or asses. 

Madagascar has unenviable celebrity as the 
scene of a persecution which might have brought 
a blush even to the cheek of Nero. When Rana- 
valona I. mounted the throne, murdering all riv- 
als, — the "bloody Mary" of Madagascar, treach- 
erous as Judas, selfish as Cleopatra, — from twenty to 
thirty thousand victims fell annually a prey to her 
cruelty. Her chief amusement was a bull fight, and 
it was said that half of the population perished under 
her bloody sceptre. At her coronation she took two 
of the national idols in her hands, and said, ' ' From 
my ancestors I received you. In you I put my trust, 
therefore support me." And those idols, in robes of 
scarlet and gold, were held at the front of the plat- 
form to overawe the multitude. 

We pass over an interval of years. In 1868, 
thirty -nine years after the coronation of Ranavalona 
I., and seven years after her death, Ranavalona II. was 
crowned. For the first time, Madagascar had a 



NE W CBN VER TS A ND MART YRS. 229 

Christian, as well as a constitutional, ruler. He who 
would see the marvellous transformation in this island 
need only contrast the coronation of these two 
queens, one on the 12th of June, 1829, and the other 
on the 3rd of September, 1868. At this latter cere- 
mony, the symbols of pagan faith were nowhere to 
be seen. In their place lay a beautiful copy of the 
Bible, side by side with the laws of Madagascar. 
Over the queen was stretched a canopy, on whose 
four sides were as many Scripture mottoes: " Glory 
to God," " Peace on Earth," " Good- will to Men," 
" God with Us." Her inaugural address was inter- 
woven with the dialect of Scripture, and now it was 
idolatry and not Christianity that became a suppliant 
for toleration ; — and all this, seven years after the death 
of the bloody Mary, whose thirty- two years had been a 
reign of terror! Astrologers and diviners were no 
longer to be found at court ; Rasoherina's sacred idol 
was cast out of the palace; government work ceased 
on Sunday ; Sunday markets were closed, divine wor- 
ship held in the court. The Madagascar New Year 
was changed from an idolatrous festival to a Christian 
holiday, and the queen's address declared, "I have 
brought my kingdom to lean upon God, and expect 
you, one and all, to be wise and just, and to walk in 
His ways." One month later this Christian queen 
and her prime minister were publicly baptized by a 
native preacher, in the very courtyard where the 
bloodiest edicts had been promulgated. 

When the queen was examined by native minis- 
ters, previous to baptism, it was found that her first 
serious impressions were traceable to a native Chris- 
tian. One of the four noble men afterward burned 
as martyrs had thus sown the seed in her own heart. 
Two days before their baptism, the queen and her 
prime minister were married, and shortly after pub- 
licly joined in the Lord's Supper. Her example was 
likely to be followed by government officers of high 
rank; and even the chief idol keeper, the astrologer 



230 THE NEW ACTS OF THE JtPOSTLES. 

of Rasoherina, applied for baptism. The congrega- 
tions multiplied beyond all means of accommodation. 
A hundred new buildings were in demand. There 
was an increase of sixteen thousand worshippers in a 
year, and the royal chapel was erected in the very 
courtyard of the palace, where to-day that beautiful 
house of prayer may yet be seen. In gilded letters 
upon two large stone tablets forming part of the sur- 
base of the structure, appears engraven the follow- 
ing royal statement, read at the layin of the corner- 
stone in 1869: 

" By the power of God and gr je of our Lord 
Jesus, I, Ranavalomanjaka, Que 1 of Madagascar, 
founded the House of Prayer, on the thirteenth 
Adimizana, in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
1869, as a house of prayer for the service of God, 
King of kings and Lord of lords, according to the 
word in sacred Scriptures, by Jesus Christ the Lord 
who died for the sons of all men, and rose again for 
the justification and salvation of all who believe in, 
and love Him. 

" For these reasons this stone house, founded by me 
as a house of prayer, cannot be destroyed by any one, 
whoever may be king of this my land, forever and 
forever; but if he shall destroy this house of prayer 
to God which I have founded, then is he not king of 
my land Madagascar. Wherefore I have signed my 
name with my hand and the seal of the kingdom. 

"Ranavalomanjaka, Queen of Madagascar." 

Maskepetoom — The Indian Chief. 

The Rev. Mr. Rundle, of the English Wesleyan 
Missionary Society, was the pioneer, who, at great 
personal risk, visited the Cree tribes of the North 
American Indians, that he might bear to them the 
message of salvation. These tribes were, perhaps, 
the most numerous and powerful among the Indians 
that roamed over the vast regions of the Canadian 



NE W CON VER TS AND MARTYRS. 231 

northwest, before the scourge of epidemic disease 
had mowed them down by thousands. 

We put on record here the simple story of the 
most powerful chief among those tribes, known as 
Maskepetoom, or the crooked arm, from the fact 
that one arm had been so hacked and wounded in 
close conflict with his ferocious neighbours, the 
Black Feet Indians, that, in healing, the muscles 
had contracted and stiffened, and permanently 
crooked the arm. This chief was a born warrior. 
His special delight was found in the excitement of 
Indian conflict, in cunning ambuscades, and strategic 
movements. He did not hesitate to practice those 
barbarities and cruelties upon the captives of other 
tribes that have given to the Indians a character as 
specially vindictive and inhuman. 

The Rev. James Evans, in his marvellous trips 
through the magnificent distances of this northwest, 
visited and faithfully preached the gospel to Maske- 
petoom and his warriors; and, although some ac- 
cepted the gospel, and became Christian believers, 
the warlike chief himself was found impervious to 
the message of peace. Some years later, the Rev. 
George Macdougal, at one of the camp-fire services, 
read as his Scripture lesson the story of Christ's trial 
and crucifixion, and came to the prayer which the 
Saviour offered for his murderers : ' ' Father, forgive 
them, for they know not what they do." He stopped 
to dwell especially upon this prayer, for the Indian 
spirit feeds upon retaliation. If there be any attribute 
of the Indian character that has become historically 
and proverbially conspicuous, not only prominent but 
overtopping all others, it is the disposition to revenge 
real or imaginary injuries upon the perpetrators of 
them. And, having in mind the fact that this quality 
was so regnant in the hearts of his Indian hearers, he 
attacked the evil stronghold, and plainly told them 
the conditions of divine forgiveness: " If we forgive 
not men their trespasses, neither will our heavenly 



232 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

Father forgive our trespasses;" that if they really- 
expected forgiveness from the Great Spirit, they 
must be able to pray such a prayer as Christ offered 
on the cross. The dark-eyed warrior listened with 
profound attention, and was deeply moved, but 
nothing more was said to him that evening. 

The next day, as the great company led by him, 
and composed of many hundred Indians, was riding 
along over the beautiful prairie, a subordinate chief 
rode quickly to the side of Mr. Macdougal, the mis- 
sionary, begging him, in an excited manner, to fall 
back into the rear, lest he should be compelled to 
witness the horrible torture and violent death of a 
man who was approaching them in a little band of 
Indians, seen in the distance, although so far off as 
scarcely to be distinguishable to a white man's vision. 

The warning of this chief was occasioned by the 
fact that, months before this, Maskepetoom had sent 
his only son across a mountain range, or pass, to 
bring a herd of horses home. Among the foot-hills 
of these massive mountains are many fertile valleys 
where there is grazing all the year round, and in one 
of these the great chieftain had kept his reserve of 
horses. One of his warriors was selected as the 
comrade of his son, to aid him in his work. It 
transpired that this man, having a chance to sell these 
horses, was so excited by the bait offered to his 
cupidity, that he actually murdered the son of the 
chief, disposed of the herd, and for a time conceal- 
ing his booty, returned to the tribe, telling a plausi- 
ble story that in one of the dangerous passes in the 
mountains the young chief had lost his foothold and 
been dashed to pieces over an awful precipice, so 
that he, being left alone to manage the herd of 
horses, had been compelled to see them scattering 
wildly over the plain. As nothing was at the time 
known to the contrary, Maskepetoom and his follow- 
ers were compelled to accept this improbable story; 
but it subsequently transpired that, unknown to the 



NE W CON VER TS A ND MA RTYRS. 233 

murderer, the tragedy had witnesses; so that for 
months a horrible vengeance had been preparing 
when the offender should come within the control of 
the exasperated chief. And now the awful day had 
come when the vengeance might find opportunity of 
execution, and the bereaved father was actually 
approaching the band, among whom was the mur- 
derer of his only son. As he advanced the very 
warriors held their breath. He quickened the speed 
of his horse, and rode on in advance. Mr. Macdougal, 
anxious, if possible, to prevent the execution of such 
dire revenge, spurred his horse forward, and rode 
up just in the rear of the mighty chieftain, uplifting 
his prayer to God that the wrath of man might at 
least be restrained. 

When the two bands approached within a few hun- 
dred yards of each other, the eagle eye of Maskepe- 
toom caught sight of the murderer. He drew his 
tomahawk impetuously from his belt, and rode still 
faster till he came face to face with the man that 
had treacherously inflicted the greatest injury that 
was possible upon the father; then, with a voice 
tremulous with suppressed emotion and yet with 
admirable command over himself, the chieftain 
looked in the face the man that had broken his 
heart and murdered his boy, and said to him, " You 
have killed my son, and you deserve to die. I 
selected you as his trusted companion, and gave you 
the post of honour as his comrade, and you have 
betrayed my trust and cruelly murdered my only 
boy. No greater injury could you have done to me 
and to my tribe. You have not only broken my 
heart, but you have killed him who was to have been 
my successor. You ought to die, by all the laws of 
Indian tribes; but I heard from the missionary last 
night at the camp fire, that, if we expect the Great 
Spirit to forgive us, we must forgive our enemies, 
even those who have done to us the greatest wrongs ; 
and but for this I would have buried my tomahawk 



234 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

in your brains at this instant. You have been my 
most cruel enemy, and you deserve death; but," he 
added, as his voice trembled with still deeper emotion, 
"as I hope the Great Spirit will forgive me, I 
freely forgive you. But go away from me and from 
my people, and let me never again see your face." 
Then Maskepetoom hastily pulled up over his head 
his war bonnet, his voice completely broke down, and 
actually quivered with the feelings that were tearing 
his heart, but which he had for the time suppressed; 
the gigantic form bowed low over the neck of the 
horse, and he gave way to an agony of tears. 

This great chieftain not only became a devoted 
and consistent Christian, but for years afterwards 
lived a becoming and beautiful life. He gave up all 
his old warlike habits. He mastered the syllabic 
characters in which the Cree Bible was printed. He 
made the word of God his daily solace, his counsel- 
lor, and his joy, and the remainder of his days were 
spent in service to God and man. He delivered 
thrilling and earnest addresses to his own people, 
urging them to give up all their old sinful ways, 
and become followers of that Saviour who had so 
grandly saved him. They listened to his words, and 
many, like him, abandoned their old warlike habits, 
and settled down into lives of peaceful quiet. He was 
so desirous even to benefit his old enemies, the Black- 
feet, and to tell them the story of a Saviour's love, 
that he actually went fearless and unarmed among 
them, Bible in hand. His end was the end of a 
martyr, for a bloodthirsty chief of that vindictive 
tribe saw him approaching, and, remembering some 
of the fierce conflicts they had waged in other days, 
and, doubtless, having lost by the prowess of Mas- 
kepetoom some of his own relatives in those conflicts, 
he seized his gun, and, in defiance of all rules of hu- 
manity, not to say magnanimity, he coolly shot the 
unarmed and converted Christian chieftain in cold 
blood. 



NE W CON VER TS AND MART YRS. 235 

And so fell a man who was a wondrous trophy of the 
cross, a chieftain whose conversion did a vast amount 
of good, showing how the gospel can change the hard- 
est heart, eradicate the most deeply rooted habits, and 
enable a warlike savage so thoroughly to conquer the 
besetting sin of the Indian character, even under the 
most extreme provocation and where few could have 
found fault if the price of blood had been exacted 
and the murderer executed, as actually to forgive the 
offender. This is the more remarkable, because re- 
venge, like cannibalism, has its root in a religious or 
superstitious conviction. Dr. S. McFarlane says 
that cannibalism can be accounted for in no way sat- 
isfactorily but as a religious practice. He gives 
many proofs of this position. It is not due to appe- 
tite for human flesh, nor simply to vindictive feeling 
toward enemies. They regard the devouring of an 
enemy as the means of incorporating into themselves 
the strength of a slain foe, and all the ceremonies of 
cannibalism are invested with the sanctities of re- 
ligion. And so we may say, of the Indian character, 
as to revenge ; it is not regarded by them as a vice, 
but a virtue, as the quality of a manly, brave, and 
noble spirit; as a form of justice, not simply of hate- 
ful passion ; and something to be cherished, not to be 
suppressed. An Indian without revenge is a coward 
in the tribe, and there is nothing from which an In- 
dian shrinks more than from the charge of cowardice ; 
and so, when the gospel overcomes in a man like 
Maskepetoom the instinct of revenge, and especially 
when revenge could be justified as a judicial act, in- 
flicting punishment upon a murderer, it is one of the 
marks of the miracle-working power of the gospel of 
Christ. 

Ling-Ching-Ting — The Chinese Opium-Smoker. 

Rev. James Main was so shocked at the vacuity of 
a Chinaman's face that he declared there was in the 
very look of a Chinese audience somewhat that 



236 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

seemed to say that the consequence of not having 
heard the gospel was a loss of all capacity to receive 
and understand it. 

Thirty years ago, in Foochow, a man, of about 
forty, found his way into the little suburban chapel 
at Ato, and his eyes and ears were fixed upon the 
Rev. S. L. Binkley, who was preaching on the all- 
sufficiency of Christ to save. For some reason this 
poor Chinaman's attention had been strangely riveted 
to the truth, and he tarried at the close of the service 
to converse with the missionary. He said, "This 
Jesus I never heard of until now, and I don't know 
who He is; but did you not say that He can save 
me from all my sins ? " " Yes," replied Mr. Binkley, 
" I said exactly that." " But then you did not know 
me when you said so. I have been for many years a 
liar, a gambler, a sorcerer, an adulterer, and for 
twenty years an opium-smoker, and no man who has 
used opium for so long a time was ever known to be 
cured. Now if you had known me, you would never 
have said what you did, do you see ? " Of course the 
missionary could only repeat with emphasis his 
former declaration, about the power and willingness 
of Jesus to save his believing people from even such 
a multitude of sins ! 

The opium-smoker was struck dumb with amaze- 
ment. His mind was in bondage to ancient super- 
stitions ; the poison of lust was in his very blood ; and 
worse than all, he was sold in hopeless slavery to the 
awful drug and his will was in chains to a habit of 
twenty years, and he had never yet known any such 
victim to be set free. The thought of such a deliver- 
ance as even possible, of salvation from all his sins, 
was too much — he was dazed by the glory of such 
new freedom and dared not believe such statements 
to be other than extravagant fancies or tormenting 
illusions. And so he went away; but he came back 
the next day, and day after day, to hear more of this 
wonderful Saviour, and to look into this gospel of sal- 



NE W CON VER TS A ND MA RTYRS. 237 

vation that promised to free even an opium-slave. 
Weeks passed by ; and one morning impetuously rush- 
ing into the missionaries' room, before his tongue 
could speak his radiant face had told of his new dis- 
covery: "I know it now! Jesus can save me from 
all my sins, for He has done it." 

Yes, so quick had been the victory of faith that 
the last and worst enemy was destroyed ; the habit 
was broken, and even the desire was gone. He no 
longer felt the bonds under which he had hopelessly 
struggled for so many years. Christ had made him 
free; and such deliverance demanded a declaration. 
The opium slave must speak, for he believed; he 
must go back to Hok-chiang, where his companions 
in sin lived, and tell them of this Jesus who could 
save them from all their sins. Friends sought to 
dissuade him from preaching this doctrine of these 
foreign devils ; or, if he would, let him stay at Foo- 
chow, where he would be safe, and not risk the riot- 
ous mobs at Hok-chiang, who would take off his 
head, and then there would be a stop to all his talk- 
ing. But, no ! Ling-Ching-Ting would go to his own 
people, and with no weapon but the word of God. 
He went. He told the story of a great salvation for 
the worst of sinners, and held up himself as an illus- 
tration — like Paul, a pattern for other believers. 
Pelted with clods and stones, beaten and bruised, 
driven from place to place, his witness could not be 
stopped. At last his persecutors brought him before 
a cruel district magistrate at Hok-chiang, and false 
witnesses preferred against him the vilest charges; 
and the corrupt judge, glad to deal out revenge 
against this foreign sect, actually sentenced him to 
receive two thousand stripes ! and upon his bare back 
the cruel bamboo was mercilessly laid, until the flesh 
lay in strips. He was borne to the mission prem- 
ises almost dead, and the doctor declared that such 
injuries he had never before seen inflicted by the 
bamboo. 



238 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

When Dr. Baldwin sought to comfort this martyr 
of Christ, before he could find words with which to 
address him, the suffering saint, so lately the chief 
of sinners, said with a smile: "Teacher, this poor 
body be in great pain, but my inside heart be in a 
great peace." Then, to the astonishment of the 
missionary, lifting himself a little on his bloody 
cot, he said, "If I get up again from this, you 
will let me go back to Hok-chiang, won't you? " 

For some time his recovery seemed doubtful, and 
then improvement slowly began. While yet but half 
healed, and scarce able to walk, he stole away, and 
suddenly appeared at Hok-chiang to preach again to 
his hateful persecutors; and it was not strange that 
words of witness, sealed by such experiences of 
blood, brought his very foes to his Saviour. 

Ling-Ching-Ting for fourteen years kept on preach- 
ing. He was ordained in 1869. He won hundreds 
of converts, and a score of native preachers learned 
from him to tell the old story of full salvation. In 
1876, failing health gave the signal of his approach- 
ing end; but when too weak to stand, he still gath- 
ered around him those to whom he could bear 
witness to the Saviour, and passed away, singing, in 
the joy of an unclouded hope. 

Narayan Sheshadri — The Brahman Apostle. 

From the converts of India we select this remark- 
able man who became the first convert of the Free 
Church of Scotland, under the ministry of Dr. John 
Wilson, and Dr. Murray Mitchell, fifty years ago. 
He spent some years as a missionary, teacher and 
preacher, and was then ordained by the Presbytery 
of Bombay, and for the rest of his life this highly 
educated Brahman devoted himself to a ministry of 
love among the outcast Mangs of the Deccan centre 
of India. He left ordinary British territory that he 
might undertake to annex the great native state of 



NE W CON VER TS AND MART YRS. 239 

Hyderabad to the kingdom of Christ. This was in 
the year 1863, when he was about forty years of age. 
His evangelistic work was unceasing and untiring. 
He secured a tract of some three hundred acres near 
Jalna, and formed a Christian Church and commun- 
ity which he called by the name of Bethel. After 
ten years of toil he visited Scotland and America 
that he might interest the churches in his work and 
raise money for necessary enlargement. Those who 
saw him in his native Indian dress and white turban 
will not soon forget the impression that he made in 
the assemblies in which he moved. His face was 
charming, and his personality magnetic. His com- 
mand of the English tongue was such as left little 
distinction between himself and the natives of Scot- 
land. He had an extremely pithy and impressive 
way of speaking, and his earnestness was both cap- 
tivating and contagious. He was at the Presbyterian 
Alliance in Philadelphia in 1880. He was made 
doctor of divinity by the University of Montreal. 

There were no pews in the Bethel Church in India. 
The congregation sat on the floor in rows, devout 
and attentive, while the babies crawled about every- 
where. An hour or so after service the catechists 
and Bible women met. Bands went forth under Dr. 
Sheshadri's training to preach in the villages round 
about Bethel ; and in this way small communities 
were formed. He carried on work amid the thirty- 
three villages where Christian converts resided, and, 
in 1890, reported 1,062 living members, beside 649 
adherents. These native Christians keep all their 
primitive simplicity, and are not Anglicised by their 
Christianity. 

Dr. Sheshadri was a teacher as well as a preacher, 
singularly facile in his interpretation of Scripture, 
and acute in meeting objections brought by Hindus 
and Moslems against Christianity. He sought to train 
over a thousand converts into intelligent disciples and 
workers. He left Bombay for Japan on account of 



240 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

impaired health, in February, 1891, and visited 
America; but on his return, while en route for Glas- 
gow, died, and was buried in mid-Atlantic. Here 
was a Brahman lad who confessed Jesus Christ before 
the Supreme Court of Bombay, and who was blessed 
to lead some 2,000 of his countrymen to Christ. 
What has been done in the case of one educated and 
accomplished Brahman, who in his youth had been 
identified with the gods and entitled to worship, may 
yet be accomplished among thousands and millions 
of his fellow-countrymen. His first confession of 
Jesus Christ was in the presence of the Civil Court. 
In 1843 two brothers left the fire worship of Zoroas- 
ter for the service of Christ, and the Civil Court was 
appealed to. The two Brahman brothers clung to the 
new Saviour they had found. They were Narayan 
and Shripat. The younger was not sixteen years old, 
and Sir Erskine Perry handed him over to the Brah- 
man priests, sneering at his plea that he had arrived 
at the age of discretion. Torn from the arms of the 
missionary, Nesbit, he sobbed forth the question, 
"Am I to be compelled to worship idols ?" It was 
thus a Christian judge drove this lad back into Brah- 
manism, and he was compelled to swallow the 
five products of the cow that he might be restored to 
caste ; but his older brother, Narayan, being confess- 
edly of age, could not be hindered, and started on his 
new career as the Brahman apostle. 

Joseph H. Neesima — The Japanese Educator. 

Fifty years ago, there was born in the Sunrise 
Kingdom a boy for whom God had decreed a 
future which was to bear wrought into it, as into 
the crusader's cloak, the red sign of the cross. He 
was but five years old when he renounced idol wor- 
ship, though he had not yet found a faith that fed his 
soul-hunger. Then a stray copy of a sort of Chinese 
Bible fell into his hands, and that opening sentence: 
" In the beginning God created the heavens and the 



NE W CON VER TS A ND MA RTYRS. 241 

earth," struck his youthful mind as more sublimely 
simple and satisfactory than any account of the 
origin of all things that he had ever met. The 
transcendental philosophers tell us that the owl comes 
from the egg, and the egg from the owl, but fail to 
answer the question, where did the first owl come 
from that laid the first egg? But here young Nees- 
ima found a great First Cause. 

Thus he first got a glimpse of the Christian God, 
and began to feel after Him, if haply he might find 
Him; and untaught by man, he prayed, " O, if you 
have eyes, look upon me ; if you have ears, listen for 
me ! " A glimpse of an atlas of the United States 
had also awakened a desire to see more of that West- 
ern World, and he thought, if he could get away from 
Japan, he might both see America and learn more 
of this new faith. And so, in disguise, he sailed for 
Shanghai, and thence worked his way to Boston, on 
the voyage studying English and reading a Chinese 
New Testament which he bought in Hong Kong. 

As in the first verse of Genesis he had found God 
the Creator, so in John iii. 16 he found God the 
Saviour. Arriving at Boston, he fell in with a copy* 
of Robinson Crusoe, and was taught by the prayer | 
of Crusoe in shipwreck how to draw near to God. 
Nothing happens by chance; and it was a part of 
God's strange ordering that the owner of the ship in 
which he had come to Boston should be Alpheus 
Hardy, one of the most benevolent and missionary- 
spirited men then in America. Hearing of young 
Neesima from the captain, he sought out the Jap- 
anese stranger, and gave him a name, Joseph Hardy, 
declaring that God had raised him up to be to his 
own people a saviour, like Joseph in Egypt. Mr. 
Hardy's help secured to Neesima a Christian col- 
legiate training ; and the result was that he developed 
so beautiful a character that when President Seelye 
was asked for a testimonial to his worth, his sufficient 
answer was, " You cannot gild gold! " 






242 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

While he was studying theology in 187 1-2, the Jap- 
anese Embassy, at Washington, secured his services as 
an interpreter, and the year he spent with them visit- 
ing the American cities and European capitals was 
radiant with his shining example of Christ-likeness. 
These distinguished men secured him a pardon for 
leaving his own land without leave, and when he 
returned to Japan, they were at the head of govern- 
ment, and gave him aid in his projects for the Chris- 
tian education of his countrymen. 

Joseph Neesima became the first native evangelist 
of his race. He not only preached Christ boldly and 
taught the truths of the gospel, but before he left 
America, had secured the money with which to lay the 
foundations of the Doshisha, the training college of 
Kyoto, for Japanese pastors. 

Urged by his friends of the embassy to take a 
prominent and lucrative part in the government of 
the New Japan, he could be drawn aside by no bait 
of money, position or personal gain. He bore the 
cross to the heart of the Island Empire, first preach- 
ing Christ in the interior; and persistently wrought 
at his great educational enterprise for fifteen years, 
facing all obstacles, and patiently and prayerfully 
holding on to his " one endeavour," as Doshisha 
implies, until, before his death, he had seen more 
than nine hundred pupils in his school. 

His perseverance was Apostolic. When as yet the 
Bible could not openly be taught, he taught Christian- 
ity under the disguise of moral science. When to put 
up buildings for a Christian school was pronounced 
even by friends to be as hopeless and chimerical 
as to "attempt to fly to Mars," his faith was so cour- 
ageous that in four months the buildings were open- 
ing and the objector was taking part in the dedication ! 
He used to say that he could have been nailed to a 
literal cross with less suffering than his labours for 
Christ had cost ; yet nothing but the hand of death 
ever arrested his work or even dampened his ardour. 



NE W CON VER TS A ND MART YRS. 243 

To the last he was planning new enterprises for the 
evangelization and education of his countrymen. 
Death overtook him, as it overtook Goujon, the 
sculptor, who, with chisel in hand, had his eye fixed on a 
half-carved statue. He was dictating final messages 
to his school and the missionary society: and, like a 
great general, with maps of five provinces before him, 
was marking the strategic points, and issuing orders 
for a grand campaign. 

His funeral marks an era in the history of Japan. 
The foremost convert, the apostle of Japan, was 
dead. Seven hundred students of the Doshisha, 
seventy graduates from all parts of the empire, gov- 
ernment officials, and even a delegation of Buddhist 
priests from Osaka, thronged the procession that fol- 
lowed to its resting-place the body of the man who, 
not yet fifty years old, had made upon the empire a 
mark such as no other had ever left for good. 

Burial could not be permitted beside his father in 
the Buddhist Temple grove; but the refusal was 
itself the most splendid tribute to his worth ; for the 
assigned reason was that Neesima was the very chief 
and head centre of Christianity in Japan, and must 
not, therefore, find a grave in the sacred cemetery of 
Buddhism ! 

Susi and Chuma — "Livingstone's Body-guard." 

The work of David Livingstone in Africa was so 
far that of a missionary explorer and general, that 
the field of his labour is too broad to permit us to 
trace individual harvests. No man can thickly scatter 
seed over so wide an area. But there is one marvel- 
lous story connected with his death, and which has to 
do with individual character, the like of which 
has never been written on the scroll of human his- 
tory. All the ages may safely be challenged to fur- 
nish its parallel. 

On the night of his death he called for Susi, his 
faithful servant, and, after some tender ministries 



244 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

had been rendered to the dying man, Livingstone 
said, " All right; you may go out now." And reluc- 
tantly Susi left him alone. At four o'clock next 
morning, May i, Susi and Chuma, with four other 
devoted attendants, anxiously entered that grass hut 
at Ilala. The candle was still burning, but the 
greater light had gone out. Their great master, as 
they called him, was on his knees, his body stretched 
forward, his head buried in his hands upon the pil- 
low. With silent awe they stood apart and watched 
him, lest they should invade the privacy of prayer. 
But he did not stir; there was not even the motion of 
breathing, but a suspicious rigidity of inaction. Then 
one of these black men, Matthew, softly came near and 
gently laid his hands upon his cheeks. It was 
enough: the chill of death was there. The great 
father of Africa's dark children was dead, and they 
were orphans. 

The most refined and cultured Englishmen would 
have been perplexed as to what course to take. 
They were surrounded by superstitious and unsym- 
pathetic savages, to whom the unburied remains of 
the dead man would be an object of dread. His 
native land was six thousand miles away, and even 
the coast was distant fifteen hundred. A grave respon- 
sibility rested upon these simple-minded sons of the 
Dark Continent, — a burden, to which few of the wisest 
and ablest would have been equal. Those remains, 
with his valuable journals, instruments, and personal 
effects, must be carried to Zanzibar. But the body must 
first be preserved from decay, and they had no skill nor 
facilities for embalming; and, if preserved, there were 
no means of transportation — no roads or carts; no 
beasts of burden available — the body must be borne 
on the shoulders of human beings; and, as no 
strangers could be trusted, they must themselves 
undertake the journey and the sacred charge. 
These humble children of the forest were grandly 
equal to the occasion, and they resolved among 



NEW CONVERTS AND MARTYRS. 245 

themselves to carry that body to the sea-shore, and 
not give it into any other hands until they could sur- 
render it to his countrymen. And, to insure safety 
to the remains and security to the bearers, it must 
be done*with secrecy. They would gladly have kept 
secret even their master's death, but the fact could 
not be concealed. God, however, disposed Chitambo 
and his subjects to permit these servants of the great 
missionary to prepare his emaciated body for its last 
journey, in a hut built for the purpose on the out- 
skirts of the village. 

Now watch these black men, as they rudely em- 
balm the body of him who had been to them a 
saviour. They tenderly open the chest and take out 
the heart and viscera: these, with a poetic and 
pathetic sense of fatness, they reserve for his beloved 
Africa. The heart that for thirty-three years had beat 
for her welfare must be buried in her own bosom. 
And so one of the Nassik boys, Jacob Wainwright, read 
the simple service of burial, and under the moula-tree 
at Ilala that heart was deposited ; and the tree, carved 
with a simple inscription, became his monument. 
Then the body was prepared for its long journey ; 
the cavity was filled with salt, brandy poured into 
the mouth, and the corpse laid out in the su» for 
fourteen days to be dried, and so reduced to the con- 
dition of a mummy. Then it was thrust into a hol- 
low cylinder of bark, over this was sewn a covering 
of canvas, the whole package securely lashed to a 
pole, and so it was made ready to be borne between 
two men upon their shoulders. 

As yet the enterprise was scarcely begun — and the 
worst of their task was yet before them. The sea 
was far away, and their path lay through a territory 
where nearly every fifty miles would bring them to a 
new tribe, to face new difficulties. Nevertheless, 
Susi and Chuma took up their precious burden, and, 
looking to Livingstone's God for help, began the most 
remarkable funeral march on record. They followed 



246 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

the track their master had marked with his footsteps 
when he penetrated to Lake Bangweolo — passing to 
the south of Lake Liembe, which is a continuation of 
Tanganyika, then crossing to Unyanyembe. Wherever 
it was found out that they were bearing a dead body, 
shelter was hard to get or even food ; and at Kase- 
kera, they could get nothing they asked, except on 
condition that they would bury the remains they 
were carrying. And now their love and generalship 
were put to a new and severe test. But again they 
were equal to the emergency. They made up an- 
other package like the precious burden, only that it 
contained branches instead of human bones — and this 
with mock solemnity they bore on their shoulders to 
a safe distance and scattered the contents far and 
wide in the brushwood, and came back without the 
bundle. Meanwhile others of their party had re- 
packed the remains, doubling them up into the sem- 
blance of a bale of cotton cloth, and so once more 
they managed to get what they needed and get on 
with their charge. 

The true story of that nine months' march has 
never yet been written, and it never will be, for the 
full data cannot be supplied. But here is material 
waiting for some coming English Homer or Milton 
to crystallize into one of the world's noblest epics; 
and it deserves the master-hand of a great poet artist 
to do it justice. 

See these black men, whom your scientific philos- 
ophers would place at one remove from the gorilla, 
run all manner of risks, by day and night, for forty 
weeks; now going round by a circuitous route to 
insure safe passage; now compelled to resort to 
stratagem to get their precious burden through the 
country ; sometimes forced to fight their foes in order 
to carry out their holy mission. Follow them as 
they ford the rivers and traverse trackless deserts, 
daring perils from wild beasts and relentless wild 
men; exposing themselves to the fatal fever, and 



NE W CON VER TS A ND MA RTYRS. 247 

burying several of their little band on the way; yet, 
on they went, patient and persevering, never fainting 
or halting, until love and gratitude had done all that 
could be done, and they laid down at the feet of the 
British Consul, on the 12th of March, 1874, all that 
was left on earth of Scotland's great hero, save that 
buried heart. 

When, a little more than a month later, the coffin 
of Livingstone was landed in England, April 15, it 
was felt that no less a shrine than Britain's greatest 
burial-place could fitly hold such precious dust. But 
so improbable and incredible did it seem that a few 
rude Africans could actually have done this splendid 
deed, at such cost of time and risk, that, not until 
the fractured bones of the arm, which the lion 
crushed at Mabotsa thirty years before, identified 
the body, was it certain that these were Livingstone's 
remains. And then, on the 18th of April, 1874, such 
a funeral cortege entered the great Abbey of Britain's 
illustrious dead as few warriors or heroes or princes 
ever drew to that mausoleum. And those faithful 
body-servants, who had religiously brought home 
every relic of the person or property of the great 
missionary explorer, were accorded places of honor. 
And well they might be. No triumphal procession 
of earth's mightiest conqueror ever equalled for sub- 
limity that lonely journey through Africa's forests. 
An example of tenderness, gratitude, devotion, 
heroism, equal to this, the world has never seen. 
The exquisite inventiveness of a love that on the 
feet of Jesus lavished tears as water, and made tresses 
of hair a towel, and broke the alabaster flask for His 
anointing ; the feminine tenderness that lifted His man- 
gled body from the cross and wrapped it in new linen, 
with costly spices, and laid it in a virgin tomb — even 
this has at length been surpassed by the ingenious 
devotion of the cursed sons of Canaan. The grandeur 
and pathos of that burial scene amid the stately 
columns and arches of England's famous Abbey loses 



248 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

in lustre when contrasted with that simpler scene 
near Ilala, when, in God's greater cathedral of Nature, 
whose columns and arches are the trees, whose sur- 
pliced choir are the singing birds, whose organ is the 
moaning wind, — the grassy carpet was lifted and dark 
hands laid Livingstone's heart to rest! And in the 
great cortege that moved up the nave of Westminster, 
no truer nobleman was found than that black man, Susi, 
who in illness had nursed the Blantyre hero, had laid 
his heart in Africa's bosom, and whose hand was now 
upon his pall. Let those who doubt and deride Chris- 
tian missions to the degraded children of Ham, who 
tell us that it is not worth while to sacrifice precious 
lives for the sake of these doubly lost millions of the 
Dark Continent, — let such tell us whether it is not 
worth while, at any cost, to seek out and save men 
of whom such Christian heroism is possible ! 



III. 

TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 
The Pitcairn Islanders. 

By His book alone, God has wrought wonders of 
transformation. 

We have been wont to think the presence of per- 
sonal agency an essential condition of the work of 
conversion ; and perhaps, in view of the emphasis laid 
by God Himself upon the living voice and the believ- 
er's witness, we are not likely to give any undue 
importance to personal contact with souls. But we 
must not forget that God's choice of human channels 
for His grace does not leave Him absolutely depend- 
ent upon them. In more instances than one, He has 
set His peculiar seal and sanction upon His own in- 
spired word as the means of softening hard hearts 
and changing foes to friends. 

The story of the Pitcairn exiles is an illustration of 
the power of the Bible alone, as the seed of God, to 
raise up in the most sterile soil and amid most hope- 
less conditions a harvest for the kingdom. For He 
has two sorts of seed — one is the word of God; the 
other the children of the kingdom. (Mark iv. 14; 
Matt. xiii. 38.) 

In the mind and heart of the mutineer, John 
Adams, God's way may possibly have been prepared 
by early parental training of which we have no 
record; but, so far as we know, no human hand 
wielded the subtle moulding influence that turned 
that abandoned sailor to God. In this case the soli- 
tary cause which wrought such miraculous effects on 
Pitcairn Island was the written word of God. And 
other facts are fast coming to the surface and de- 
manding thankful recognition, which prove that, 

249 



250 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

quite apart from the voice and presence of the living 
and witnessing believer, the Bible is doing its own 
peculiar work. Where the feet of no other mission- 
ary have yet left their tracks, this living word, which 
liveth and abideth forever, has sometimes proved the 
pioneer missionary and evangelist. 

Pitcairn Island lies solitary in Pacific waters, and 
is about seven miles in circuit. Carteret discovered 
it over a century and a quarter since, and named it 
after one of his officers who caught the first glimpse 
of it. There for more than sixty years the mutineers 
of the Bounty and their descendants found a habita- 
tion. In 1790, nine of these mutineers landed there, 
with six men and twice as many women from Tahiti. 
At that time the island was found uninhabited, 
though relics of previous occupancy were afterwards 
discovered. 

Among these settlers of a century past, quarrels 
violent and bloody broke out, and the flames of pas- 
sion, fed by strong drink, burned so hotly that when 
the dawn of the new century came, it looked down 
on desolation: all the Tahitian men had perished, 
and all but one of the Englishmen. John Adams 
was, of the mutineers, the sole survivor. He had 
rescued from the wreck a Bible and a prayer-book. 
Destitute of all other reading, and left without 
former companions, he turned to these two books for 
occupation, comfort and counsel. As he read the 
word of God, he began to be conscious that he was 
looking in a magic mirror — he saw himself in his 
hideousness, and remorse for past sins and crimes 
began to sting his conscience as with a whip of scor- 
pions. And from contrition he was led to conver- 
sion — from fear to faith — and all this without any 
man to guide him. He became not only a true be- 
liever in Christ, but a witness to His grace and a 
missionary. With the aid of these two books, he 
undertook to teach those grossly ignorant women of 
Tahiti, and the children that were left of this mixed 



TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 251 

parentage. Mark the result! Upon this lonely 
island grew up a Christian community so remarkable 
that all travellers visiting those shores have borne 
common witness to the gentleness of character and 
virtuous simplicity of conduct which were there dis- 
played. 

This story of the Pitcairn Islanders thus stands 
quite unique in the history of missions. Here was 
a bastard community — a progeny whose parentage 
was mutiny and lust, from the beginning doubly 
accursed. Of all the common institutions of the 
gospel, which we significantly call ' ' means of 
grace," there was complete destitution — no clergy- 
men or Christian laymen, no churches or Sunday- 
schools, no restraints of law or religion. One stray 
copy of the blessed book of God, and of that Book of 
Common Prayer, which is so largely permeated with 
that word of God, — and even these in the hands of 
a reckless, godless mutineer, — first became means of 
blessing and salvation to him, and then to that 
degraded class by whom he was surrounded. 

The Colonists of Sierra Leone. 

When William A. B. Johnson went to this 
Mountain of Lions, in 1816, he found the refuse of 
slave ships there gathered. If the horrors of that 
"middle passage," in which four hundred wretches 
were crammed into a hold, twelve yards long, seven 
wide, and three and a half high, had crushed their 
minds and moral natures into as narrow a compass 
as their bodies, they could have not been more hope- 
less subjects for labour. They were manumitted 
slaves, but in all but name were still in most abject 
bondage. These liberated captives represented 
tribes so numerous that samples of one hundred and 
fifty dialects might have been found at Queen's 
Yard in Sierra Leone. Johnson found himself at 
Hogbrook, with fifteen hundred half-starved, dis- 



252 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

eased, filthy Africans, dying at the rate of two hun- 
dred a month, and already dead to all response even 
to human kindness. He held a Sunday service with 
but nine attendants, and these nearly nude. The 
fact is that, like the victims of Spanish treachery in 
Central America, they had so suffered at white men's 
hands, that even the gospel was unwelcome at white 
men's lips, and the idea of Heaven, if white men 
were to be there, was almost as repulsive as hell 
would be without them. 

This simple-minded German fed them daily with 
their allowance of rice, and patiently showed them 
loving sympathy, and so won their confidence for 
himself. Then they thronged his cottage to hear the 
gospel until he had to resort to the open air as a 
meeting-place. His school was likewise full to over- 
flowing, and those pupils who had never seen a book 
or known a letter, in less than a year were reading 
the New Testament. With unceasing labour, and, 
better still, unceasing prayer, fighting the deadly cli- 
mate and the enfeebling fever, seeing his fellow- 
helpers falling beside him till the graveyard at Kissy 
was full of bodies, he persevered, telling the simple 
gospel story. And when, in 1819, his wife's illness 
drove him to England, he left at Regents Town a 
model state, like Eliot's Nonantum and Duncan's 
Metlakahtla. The natives had laid out a settlement, 
properly organized, with decent homes, and all the 
signs of a Christian community. They had built a 
church, which held 1,300 and overflowed with habitual 
attendants at three services each Lord's day. He 
had 263 communicants, a daily service attended by 
from 500 to 900, and hundreds of cases of as deep 
conviction of sin and as genuine conversion to God 
as any field ever produced. At the very time when 
his courageous faith almost gave way before the 
gigantic obstacles he had to surmount, and he had 
sought the retirement of a forest to indulge in sor- 
rowful thought, he heard one of these poor slaves 



TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 253 

praying for the liberty of a son of God, and he knew 
that the hour of victory was at hand. Even the 
secular authorities were constrained, in their report 
to the British Government, to confess, like Pharaoh's 
magicians, "This is the finger of God." As they 
contrasted the former state of the colony, ' ' grovel- 
ling and malignant superstitions, their greegrees, 
their red water, their witchcraft, their devil houses," 
with the existing sincere Christian worship, they 
wrote, "The hand of Heaven is in this!" It is "a 
miracle of good which the immediate interposition of 
the Almighty alone could have wrought." And they 
added, "What greater blessing could man or nation 
desire or enjoy than to have been made the instru- 
ments of conferring such sublime benefits on the 
most abject of the human race." 

Johnson was so impressed with the simple child- 
likeness of their faith and the obvious groaning of 
the Spirit in their prayers, that his journals are full 
of these records. Their devotion to him was 
pathetic and romantic. Hundreds of them went on 
foot with him to Freetown, five miles off, and when 
the sea prevented their going with him further, they 
said, in their broken English : ' ' Massa, suppose no 
water live here — we go all the way with you — till feet 
no more." And when he came back, and his arrival 
was announced in the church at night, some could 
not wait to go out the door, but leaped out through 
the window. Some went that night to Freetown to 
meet him, while others could not sleep, but sang the 
night away. 

Again, in 1823, he was compelled to seek rest in 
England. And now over a thousand scholars were 
in his school, seven hundred of whom could read. 
He had four hundred and fifty communicants, and 
they had their own missionary society. And when 
it pleased God that seven years of work should close 
with his burial at sea, Sara Bickersteth, — the first of 
her nation to taste the grace of God, his own child in 



254 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

the faith, — watched by his berth, read to him the 
twenty-third Psalm and prayed beside him, heard 
his dying words and closed his dying eyes. And so, 
dying, like Mills and Hunt, at thirty-five, this man in 
seven years, and amid a community as hopelessly 
ignorant and unimpressible as ever a missionary con- 
fronted, actually laid the basis of a Christian state, 
where, thirty years after his death, Bishop Vidal con- 
firmed three thousand candidates, and where, in later 
years, parishes with native pastors, a college and a 
vigorous life of its own, pushed missions into the 
interior and along the Niger. 

Tyndall has called attention to the wonders of 
crystallization. " Looking into this solution of com- 
mon sulphate of soda, mentally, we see the molecules, 
like disciplined squadrons under a governing eye, 
arranging themselves into battalions, gathering round 
distinct centres and forming themselves into solid 
masses which, after a time, assume the visible shape 
of this crystal." But there is something far tran- 
scending this in wonders, when, out of a community 
such as Johnson found at Sierra Leone, or Hunt at 
Fiji Islands, a well-ordered Christian state is organ- 
ized. A secret, unseen, mysterious power, which 
none can define or describe, is at work. Around the 
name of Jesus the disorderly and confused elements 
of a moral chaos arrange themselves in symmetry 
and beauty, and society becomes crystalline and 
reflects the glory of God. 

The New Zealand Converts. 

The New Zealanders were alike objects of fear 
and hate, when the devoted Marsden pleaded their 
cause with the Church Missionary Society and laid 
the basis of one of the most successful missions of 
the modern era. They were perpetually at war, and 
with brutal murders revenged the treachery and vio- 
lence of white men who touched at their shores. 



TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 255 

But while Samuel Marsden was yet at New South 
Wales, he met many from these islands who visited 
Paramatta, and he detected in them something which 
promised a nobler life. When the mission was first 
projected, no clergyman could be found ready for an 
enterprise so heroic; and two skilled mechanics 
undertook to win a way for the gospel by the arts of 
civilization. At the end of thirty years' toil, Mars- 
den declared that civilization is not necessary before 
Christianity, but will be found to follow Christianity 
more easily than Christianity to follow civilization ; 
and, he added, that with all its cannibalism and idol- 
atry, New Zealand would yet set an example of 
Christianity to some nations then before her in point 
of civilization. 

Certain outrages by a sea captain at Whangaroa 
Harbour had provoked horrible retaliation on the part 
of the natives, and this led to subsequent acts of 
vengeance on the part of a whaling vessel. The ex- 
citement ensuing postponed missionary effort; but 
at length, the two mechanics ventured to New 
Zealand and were well received. Marsden now 
yearned to follow in person, but could not find a 
ship captain to take him at a less cost than six hun- 
dred pounds for the risk ; so he bought a brig and 
set sail, landing on those shores unarmed, and with 
but one companion. 

As he lay awake that first night, excited by the 
awful environment of paganism and cannibalism, he 
saw above him those brilliant constellations, the 
Southern Cross and the Southern Crown, which 
served to remind him of One who bore the cross for 
all men and who would yet wear the crown of uni- 
versal empire. And on the Christmas-day which 
soon followed he preached the first sermon in New 
Zealand, using a native interpreter. His text was, 
" Behold I bring you glad tidings of great joy;" and 
around him were gathered a motley group of men 
and women and children and chiefs. For years no 



256 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

converts crowned the work, though the natives 
seemed to desire the Pakehas, or Englishmen, to set- 
tle among them; and ventured to assure Marsden 
that they would not be killed and eaten, as they were 
such salt eaters that their flesh was less savoury than 
that of the Maoris — a statement which did not dimin- 
ish the quantity of salt eaten by the English. At 
length the spirit of religious inquiry was awakened, 
and truth found such root and room to grow that 
even chiefs began to be baptized. And when Mars- 
den made his sixth visit, the east and west shores of 
the bay where he landed presented one of those 
strange and eloquent contrasts often seen where the 
gospel has won a partial victory. On one side, naked 
savages, their hands red with blood, yelling like de- 
mons, and the moans of the wounded and dying: 
on the other side, a peaceful community, decently 
clad, assembled for worship, and using devoutly the 
Church service printed in their own tongue. Here 
at one glance were the anticipations of heaven and 
hell — the misery and wretchedness of paganism con- 
fronting Christianity with its trees of righteousness 
and plants of godliness. When, at seventy-two, the 
patriarchal missionary paid his last visit, his coming 
was the signal for ecstatic delight. In his arm-chair 
before the mission house, he received the thousands 
who from great distances thronged to do him honour; 
and on re-embarking they bore him on their shoul- 
ders six miles to the shore. Since then, when, on the 
unconscious verge of another sea on whose unknown 
waters he was so soon to set sail, the apostle of New 
Zealand lifted his hands in a farewell benediction — 
since then, fifteen thousand native Christians bear 
witness that the introduction of Christianity into the 
cannibal islands on Christmas-day, 1814, was not in 
vain. Three years after Marsden's death Bishop 
Sehvyn reported a whole nation of pagans converted 
to the faith. 



TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 257 

The Ferocious Cannibals of Fiji. 

We have before referred to the atrocious cannibals 
of Fiji, the slaves of a religion of organized cruelty, 
that fattens on blood, crushes conscience, and kills 
sensibility as a red-hot iron burns out the very eye-ball. 
For a hardened Fijian to be brought to tenderness of 
heart and sensitiveness of conscience is as much a 
miracle as to replace a maimed limb or restore a 
withered arm. Hunt saw two conversions wrought 
at Viwa. One from paganism as an idolatrous system, 
to the Christian faith ; that was wonderful, like open- 
ing a blind eye or straightening a crooked form. 
But the other was more marvellous : it was a conver- 
sion from the love and guilt and power of sin to God 
and love of godliness. It was comparatively easy to 
secure a profession of Christianity; but this was like 
a resurrection from the dead. 

When this Wesleyan farmer saw in these pagan 
monsters penitence for sin as sin, deep conviction of 
guilt and agonies of godly sorrow ; when for days and 
nights together they were racked with wildest grief 
until from sheer exhaustion they fainted, and recov- 
ered only to swoon again after another agony of 
prayer, he said, this is the work of God. 

John Hunt goes on his circuits of a hundred miles 
a month, telling Christ's story, forming schools to 
train converts for teachers, ' ' turning care into 
prayer," working hard on his Fiji New Testament. 
Who can tell what that lonely servant of God had to 
overcome in facing hostile, cruel chiefs without 
force or threat, mastering a difficult tongue without 
grammar or lexicon, teaching such savages when 
their pagan tongue supplied no fit terms to convey 
divine thoughts! 

God had much people even there, and when His fit 
and full time came He knew how to lead them out. 
The priests predicted an awful drought as the judg- 
ment of the gods on the sin of those who confessed 



258 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

Jesus; but the failure of the prophecy shook popular 
faith in the pagan idols. The Queen of Viwa, and 
the " Napoleon " of Fiji, Verani, became Christians, — 
and Verani a preacher and winner of thousands of 
souls. 

This lesson of God's power has been taught us, re- 
peatedly, in the new chapters of the Acts. The story 
of Jolin Hunt in the Fiji Group is the all-convincing 
example and illustration. When he went there in 
1838, the moral aspect of those hundred islands was 
as hideous as their material aspect was lovely. If 
nature had lavished her bounties and beauties so that 
every prospect was pleasing, how vile and repulsive 
was man. Treachery and ferocity, raging passion 
and devilish cruelty, were branded on the very faces 
of the Fijians. One who had shuddered at the sight 
has sought to paint the awful portrait: "The fore- 
head filled with wrinkles ; the large nostrils distended 
and fairly smoking; the staring eyeballs red, and 
gleaming with terrible flashings; the mouth distended 
into murderous and disdainful grin ; the whole body 
quivering with excitement; every muscle strained, 
and the clenched fist eager to bathe itself in the blood 
of him who has roused this demon of fury." 

If one could dip his pen in the molten brimstone 
of hell's fiery lake, he could still write no just 
account of the condition of the Fijians fifty years ago. 
Two awful forms of crime stood like gates of hell to 
let in demons and shut out gospel heralds. Of all 
children born at least two-thirds were killed at birth, 
and to make sure of their death there was a system 
of organized destruction, and every village had its 
authorized executioner, to repeat the tragedy of 
Bethlehem's babes. Of course, infanticide and par- 
ricide go together; and so if the parents did not 
spare their offspring, neither did the offspring spare 
the parents, but despatched them when old or feeble. 

Cannibalism, — the most atrocious form of pagan 
ferocity, that breaks the whole decalogue at once, the 






TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 259 

climax of theft, sensuality and murder, — was not only 
a custom, but a sacred religious rite, and the chil- 
dren that were allowed to live, were trained to dishon- 
our and devour the human form divine. Mothers 
gave their babes a taste of the horrible feast, as a 
beast her cubs, to excite a relish for the horrid meal ; 
and not only dead bodies, but living captives, were 
given over to young children as playthings on which 
to practise for sport the art of mutilation and dissec- 
tion. It became a pride to Fijian chiefs to boast of the 
number of human bodies they had eaten; and Ra 
Undreundu's pile of stones, in which each stone 
stood for one such victim, contained nine hundred ! 
The Fijian word for corpse, " vakalu," suggests also 
the idea of a meal, as the Greek word for rejoicing 
suggests a banquet (x a P a )- All the life of these people, 
civil and religious, was inwrought with the destroy- 
ing and devouring of helpless victims. A building 
of a hut, a launching of a canoe, a burying of the 
dead, and events of far less moment, were the signals 
for a banquet on human flesh. And if the plump 
form of a favourite wife, or the tender flesh of a lit- 
tle child promised an unusual delicacy, without com- 
punction or hesitation the husband and father called 
his friends to a feast on the dainty morsel ! 

It was among such a people that the ploughboy of 
Lincolnshire landed in 1838. He soon found that 
the half of the inhuman cruelty and devilish 
butchery of this people had never been told him; 
and yet he went to Somosomo, whose people were 
the worst of all. When the youngest son of the 
King Tuithakau was lost at sea, sixteen women were 
strangled and then burned in front of the mission- 
house, notwithstanding Mr. Hunt's entreaties that 
they should be spared ; and when, some months after, 
eleven men were dragged by ropes to be roasted in 
the ovens, these demons, who were preparing the 
feast, threatened to burn down the missionary's 
house, because his wife closed and blinded the 



260 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

windows to shut out the sickening sight and smell 
of burning bodies ! 

Not one Christian among a hundred would have 
counselled Hunt to attempt work among such incar- 
nate monsters, when the king himself forbade his 
subjects under pain of death to "lotu" or profess 
the new faith, and when even the readiness to con- 
fess Christ seemed to be due to mere greed of gain 
in cutlery and firearms. Captain Wilkes of the 
American navy, in 1840, witnessed the trials of their 
seemingly hopeless work, and besought them at 
least to let him carry them to a more hopeful field; 
but John Hunt had heard a divine voice — " Fear 
not, for I have much people in these islands " — and 
he stayed. Three years at Somosomo sufficed so to 
change the horrid life about him that at least a 
bloodless war was waged, a large canoe launched 
and a great feast held for weeks without one human 
sacrifice ; and this last with no direct interference of 
the missionary. 

The last six years of John Hunt's short career of 
ten, were spent at Viwa, near Mbau, the head centre 
of Fiji power. King Thakombau, " the butcher of 
his people," was a fierce foe, and his wars and 
hostility to the missionary seemed to make all suc- 
cess hopeless — yet here again the patience of God's 
saints was rewarded. Even among this city of 
demons, God had much people. 

The Land of the Brahman. 

Even India, the Malakoff of heathenism, is not 
deficient in signs of divine power in furnishing her 
quota of converts and martyrs. The greater part of 
a century has passed since the directors of the Brit- 
ish East India Company put on record their convic- 
tion that " the sending of Christian missionaries into 
our Eastern possessions is the maddest, most expen- 
sive, most unwarranted project that was ever pro- 



TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 261 

posed by a lunatic enthusiast." No arraignment of 
the entire principle and policy of modern missions to 
the Hindus could have been more sarcastically 
severe. Observe the terms, which indirectly accuse 
those who favoured and furthered such a project, as 
not only lacking good sense, adequate justification, 
or business economy, but as enthusiasts, madmen and 
lunatics! But, what is worse — at that time, now 
more than eighty-five years ago, — this outrageous 
assault upon obedience to our Lord's command was 
not repudiated by the great body even of English 
Christians, and found positive support even among 
members of parliament and ecclesiastical dignitaries. 
A few disciples, full of faith and prayer, dared, not- 
withstanding all this violent opposition, to send mes- 
sengers and give money for this insane purpose. 

And now it is not too much to say that popular 
sentiment has undergone such a complete revolution 
that even the secular newspaper has become the 
advocate and vindicator of missions to India. The 
testimony of such men as Sir Bartle Frere, Sir Will- 
iam Muir, Sir Monier Monier Williams, Sir Herbert 
Edwardes, Max Miiller, Sir Richard Temple, Sir 
Donald McLeod, Sir William Hill, Lord John Law- 
rence, the Earl of Northbrook, Hon. W. E. Baxter, 
and a host of others, who have had ample time and 
large facility for forming an intelligent judgment, 
have left on record words so weighty that, in compari- 
son, all sneers or charges against missions in India 
become light and frivolous, if not [contemptible and 
dishonest. Such men as these, who could be misled 
neither by ignorance nor motives of policy, have 
borne singularly unanimous witness to the number 
and worth of native converts; and to something even 
more important — the fact, that Christianity is form- 
ing a new nation in the land of the Brahman ; that 
while every other faith is decaying, this divine gos- 
pel is alone beginning to run its course; that the 
changes taking place under the benign influence of 



262 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

Christianity are, for extent and rapidity of effect, far 
more extraordinary than anything witnessed in 
modern Europe by us or our fathers. Shortly since, 
Sir Rivers Thompson, Lieutenant-Governor of Ben- 
gal, testified that ' ' Christian missionaries have done 
more real and lasting good than all other agencies 
combined." And to all this testimony there still 
remains to be added, before an intelligent verdict 
can be made up, the testimony of the native Hindus 
themselves — not Ganga Dhar, Abdul Messeh, Tulsi 
Paul, Narayan Sheshadri, Keshub Chunder Sen and 
others like them who have been converts or open 
advocates of Christianity, but the native rajahs and 
princes; from the Rajah of Tanjore, who built a monu- 
ment to Schwartz, down to the first Prince of Tra van- 
core, who in 1874, publicly said: 

" Marvellous has been the effect of Christianity in 
the moral moulding and leavening of Europe. I am 
not a Christian; I do not accept the cardinal tenets 
of Christianity as they concern man in the next 
world; but I accept Christian ethics in their en- 
tirety. I have the highest admiration for them." 

Four years before this, a learned Brahman had 
candidly said: "Where did the English-speaking 
people get all their intelligence, and energy, and 
cleverness and power ? It is their Bible that gives it 
to them. And now they bring it to us and say: 
' This is what raised us. Take it and raise your- 
selves!' They do not force it upon us, as the 
Mohammedans did their Koran, but they bring it in 
love, and translate it into our languages and lay it 
before us, and say, ' Look at it, read it, examine it, 
and see if it is not good.' Of one thing I am con- 
vinced, — do what we will, oppose as we may, it is the 
Christian's Bible that will, sooner or later, zuork the 
regeneration of this land." 

India has presented perhaps the most formidable 
barriers ever encountered in any of our mission 
fields. The subtlety and acumen of the Brahmanic 



TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 263 

priesthood, and their power over the superstitious 
and ignorant common folk, the rigid restraints of 
caste — itself a wall of ice, mountain high against the 
approach of the gospel, and a system of frigid immo- 
bility which, like a vast polar zone of frost, locks in 
eternal winter the whole society it girdles — the long 
sway of that religious faith which is one of the purest 
and best of Oriental religions, notwithstanding its 
practical corruptions — these are some of the hin- 
drances Christian missions have had to meet. And 
yet notwithstanding all, the gospel is slowly razing 
these high walls, undermining these strongholds, and, 
like the resistless summer sun, melting these ice 
castles. 

The seraphic Henry Martyn, eighty years ago was 
so horror-struck at the gross idolatries and nameless 
atrocities connected with the pagodas and pageants 
of Juggernath, and the blazing fires of the suttee, 
that his exquisite sensibilities shrank back in revolt 
at the sight, and he said, ' ' I shivered as if standing, 
as it were, in the neighbourhood of hell. The fiends 
of darkness seem to sit in sullen repose in this land ! " 
Now ruined, pagodas have become Christian temples, 
and where demons were once worshipped, prayer 
ascends to Him who cast out demons with His word. 

Dr. John Wilson, of Bombay, who spent nearly a 
half century in India, twenty years ago, ' ' tersely 
catalogued the bloodless triumphs that had been 
won " on that field, where Carey led the way a century 
ago. That catalogue we venture to reproduce entire 
from the masterly work of his eminent biographer.* 

Horrors and Iniquities of India Removed by Govern- 
ment. 
I. Murder of Parents. 

(a) By Suttee. 

{b) By exposure on the banks of rivers. 

(<r) By burial alive. Case in Joudhpore territory, i860. 

* " Life of John Wilson," by George Smith, LL.D., p. 352, 



264 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

II. Murder of Children. 

(a) By dedication to the Ganges, there to be devoured by crocodiles. 

(b) By Rajpoot infanticide, West of India, Punjab, East of India. 

III. Human Sacrifices. 

(a) Temple sacrifices. 

(b) By wild tribes — Meriahs of the Khonds. 

IV. Suicide. 

(a) Crushing by idol cars. 

(b) Devotees drowning themselves in rivers. 

(c) Devotees casting themselves from precipices. 

(d) Leaping into wells — widows. 

(e) By Traga. 

V. Voluntary Torment. 

(a) By hook-swinging. 

(b) By thigh-piercing. 

(c) By tongue-extraction. 

(d) By falling on knives. 

(e) By austerities. 

VI. Involuntary Torment. 

(a) Barbarous executions. 

(b) Mutilation of criminals. 

(c) Extraction of evidence by torment. 

(d) Bloody and injurious ordeals. 

(e) Cutting off the noses of women. 

VII. Slavery. 

(a) Hereditary predial slavery. 

(b) Domestic slavery. 

(c) Importation of slaves from Africa. 

VIII. Extortions. 

(a) By Dharana. 

(b) By Traga. 

IX. Religious Intolerance. 

(a) Prevention of Propagation of Christianity. 

(b) Calling upon Christian soldiers to fire salutes at heathen festivals, 

etc. 

(c) Saluting gods on official papers. 

(d) Managing affairs of idol temples. 

X. Support of Caste by Law. 

(a) Exclusion of low castes from offices. 

(b) Exemption of high castes from appearing to give evidence. 

(c) Disparagement of low caste. 



TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 265 

There are reasons to believe fhat thousands even 
in India believe, but, like the Pharisees of old, do not 
confess Christ lest they be put out of the synagogue. 
Observers who have had rare opportunities to note 
the facts tell us that secret believers are rapidly mul- 
tiplying; and that for every avowed convert there 
are hundreds who, for fear of kin and caste, of ostra- 
cism and actual starvation, dare not make such 
avowal, but are ready when the break shall come. 
So said ''The Indian Witness" in 1889. 



The Slaves of Jamaica. 

Who can read the story of Jamaica, and doubt the 
power of the gospel over even the most degraded negro 
slaves. When the island was formally ceded to Great 
Britain by the treaty of Madrid in 1670, the place of 
the native Indians was taken by Africans, imported 
by Spaniards, and during the eighteenth century over 
half a million were brought over to suffer as the heirs 
of Canaan's curse. The history of these slaves, their 
poverty, misery, degradation, wretchedness, is among 
the blackest annals of the race ; and when the facts 
became known in Great Britain, the popular heart of 
English freemen demanded their liberation. On 
August 1, 1834, the emancipation began to take effect 
in the freedom of the children of the slave families ; 
but the midnight of July 31, 1838, was to usher in 
the complete liberation of the whole slave com- 
munity; and on that night, led on by William Knibb 
and James Philippo, fourteen thousand adult slaves 
and five thousand children joined in prayer to God as 
they waited and watched for the hour of twelve, 
midnight, which was to terminate the life of slavery 
in Jamaica; and as Rev. J. J. Fuller says, who 
was himself a child of slavery and there present, 
every coloured man on the Island was on his knees 
that night. 

A mahogany coffin had been made, polished and 



266 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

fitted by the carpenters and cabinet-makers of 
this slave population, and, as became the great 
occasion, a grave was dug. Into that coffin they 
crowded all the various relics and remnants of their 
previous bondage and sorrow. The whips, the 
torture-irons, the branding-irons, the coarse frocks, 
and shirts, and great hat, fragments of the tread- 
mill, the handcuffs — whatever was the sign and 
badge of seventy-eight years of thraldom — they 
placed in the coffin and screwed down the lid. As the 
bell began to toll for midnight, the voice of Knibb was 
heard, " The monster is dying — is dying" — until, when 
the last stroke sounded from the belfry, Mr. Knibb 
cried — " The monster is dead! Let us bury him out 
of sight forever!" and the coffin was lowered into 
its grave ; and then the whole of that throng of thou- 
sands celebrated their redemption from thraldom by 
singing the doxology ! This was the way these black 
slaves took vengeance on their former masters — not 
by deeds of violence, lust, rapine, murder; but by 
burying the remnants of their long bondage and 
the remembrance of their great wrongs, in the grave 
of oblivion. Where did those debased Africans learn 
such magnanimous love, except of Him whose greatest 
miracle was His dying prayer, ' ' Father, forgive 
them, for they know not what they do ! " 

This is not the end of this story. To-day there is 
not on the island among all the different bodies one 
church dependent on outside help : they all support 
themselves, and a large portion of them have for 
pastors the sons of former slaves. They have also 
their own independent missionary society, as well as 
schools, high schools, grammar schools, etc. 

On the island to-day there are more than two 
hundred and seventy Baptist churches alone, seventy 
of which are ministered to by young men trained in 
the colleges of Jamaica, children of former slaves; 
and the Presbyterians, Wesleyans and Episcopalians 
have their congregations beside. Here, within a lit- 



TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 267 

tie more than a half century, the gospel has not only- 
broken slave bonds, but has developed former slaves 
into a Christian community of freemen of the Lord, 
with Christian institutions. Folly and vice, idolatry 
and witchcraft, ignorance and superstition, were the 
thick growths that covered the soil half a century 
since, where now are the trees of righteousness, self- 
sustaining and self -propagating churches of coloured 
people, ministered to in many cases by sons of those 
who were formerly enthralled in slavery. These 
preachers, developed from a former slave popula- 
tion, side by side with their white brethren main- 
tain the gospel with equal success. To see the 
difference which the gospel can make, one needs 
only to contrast Jamaica with Hayti. 

Old Calabar. 

When Rev. J. J. Fuller, to whom already refer- 
ence has been made, left his native island of Jamaica 
to follow his father in a mission on the west coast of 
Africa, he landed in the Gulf of Guinea and the 
Bight of Biafra. This was in 1845. He found 
neither Bible nor book, not even written language ; 
none of the people had ever heard the name which 
brings salvation. There was a community of naked, 
degraded, depraved, ignorant savages, and human 
sacrifices were the natural apex to a pyramid of 
cruelties, which were not only common, but sanc- 
tioned and supported by superstitions which claimed 
the rank of religion. These horrid and revolting 
customs were simply built into the whole structure 
of society, like pillars into the temple they uphold. 
Cruelty was a part of the education of the people, 
and a very efficient school it was in vice and crime ! 

The people had faith in a future life, but even that 
faith only stimulated cruelty ; for it led to the culti- 
vation of customs supposed to be a protection alike 
to the dead and the living. If anybody died, somebody 



268 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

else was responsible; accusation followed, and trial for 
witchcraft by tests which were equally fatal for the in- 
nocent and the guilty. Poison was the ordeal that fol- 
lowed accusation. The living infant was buried with 
the dead mother ; and if the mother had borne twins, 
she was beaten to death and the babes were put out 
of the way; and so a curse was supposed to be lifted 
from the land. A king's death meant a wholesale 
burial alive of men and women who were put into the 
royal grave. Mr. Fuller, during forty-five years of 
personal ministry, witnessed the great transformation. 
A people without God or hope shortly began to feel 
after God, and a new faith began to dawn over their 
horizon. Their language was put in written form. 
Alfred Saker and the Presbyterian missionaries trans- 
lated the whole Bible for them ; and now they have 
churches, schools and a native ministry. The people 
are learning to read and write, and coming up to the 
higher plane of enlightenment. Belief in witchcraft 
is dead; the ordeal of the Calabar bean, the massa- 
cre of slaves, and other like absurd and cruel cus- 
toms of centuries, have disappeared. 

Take one contrast: In 1845, one of the kings of 
old Calabar died. Into his grave, according to long- 
established custom, many living people were put to 
die beside the dead. To-day a grandson of that buried 
chief is an elder in a Presbyterian church ; and every 
morning, with the open Bible in his hand, he leads 
his household in family worship. 

Mr. Fuller tells of his going into the Cameroons, 
and how in the morning, looking across the river he 
saw many canoes with people dressed up in all their 
war dresses, and their spears and swords were bran- 
dished in the sun. They had their war caps upon 
their heads. He took his glass and looked, and found 
that the decoration on the bows of all those canoes 
was nothing else but human heads. He went up to 
the chief and said to him, ''What do you do such 
cruel deeds for?" He looked very much astonished 



TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 269 

that any one should ask him such a question, and 
said, "What deeds?" Pointing across the river, Mr. 
Fuller said, ' ' Look, yonder. What about that row 
of human heads on your canoe? Why do you do 
such cruel things ? They are not right." The chief 
replied: "You people come into this country and 
live here and you claim to be a good people, and that 
is true enough ; but do you tell me that when I die 
my sons are going to put me into an empty grave 
alone and nobody with me?" When Mr. Fuller re- 
plied "Yes," he looked at him and said, " You are a 
fool." Then all his sons came up directly and said, 
"What is the matter, father?" And he repeated 
what he had said to Mr. Fuller : ' ' This man who 
has come to live in this country says that when I die 
you boys will put me into an empty grave, alone, 
with no one with me," and they looked at Mr. Fuller 
and grinned their savage grin, and then turned away 
and said, " Father, do not believe him. He is a fool, 
and he is a foreigner. What does he know? Let 
him alone." And yet mark it! That same chief 
lived on until the old custom of burying living people 
with the dead was completely abolished. In his 
town, about fifty yards from his own house, stood a 
little chapel, and the preacher in that chapel was 
none other than one of his sons, who was preaching 
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ ! 
• If God, in such a short time, can produce such a 
marvellous change, surely prayers for missions, and 
for the extension of Christ's kingdom in the world, 
have abundant proof that they are being answered of 
God. Think of the present condition of the people, 
and then of what was their former state, when this 
missionary first met them in their degradation as 
naked savages. A letter was recently received from 
the Church in Cameroons, reporting that they had 
built a chapel for themselves that will seat one thou- 
sand people, and that the membership of that one 
church had grown to seven hundred ; also that they 



270 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

had collected for themselves among their own people 
one thousand pounds, and had established fifteen 
different stations in different parts of the country 
within a year or two, in order to spread the gospel 
among their own tribe. Africa, with all her degra- 
dation and ignorance, desires to have the gospel, and 
if it is given to this degraded people they, of them- 
selves, in their own country, will spread that gospel. 
The time will come, and Mr. Fuller believes that it 
is not far off, when the Dark Continent will emerge 
from her degradation and darkness. Fifty years ago, 
up the Congo River, no one had ever heard the gos- 
pel, and it was looked upon as a hard soil to work ; 
but to-day the Scripture is being translated into their 
own tongue, their young men are being taught to 
read the Bible, Christian churches are being formed, 
and some of the cruelties that the missionaries met, 
when they landed first in the Congo, are gradually 
being removed; so that the time has already come 
when a great change is visible among the people. 

Mr. Fuller further narrates how he stood at his 
door and saw one of the chiefs coming toward him. 
He was a great man, a man of position in his coun- 
try, but the only covering that he had on, was the 
fibres of the plantain tree combed out and on his 
head a great cap with parrots' feathers. He had a 
great bullock horn hung across his breast, and he 
walked as stately as a monarch. Several of the princes 
were following him, all of them dressed in the 
same way. Mr. Fuller called to this man as he 
passed the door, using his name, " Mikani," but he 
only looked round, and would not answer. He was 
called again, but would not answer; and yet a third 
time, when one of his followers turned and said to 
Mr. Fuller, " What do you want? " ''I only want to 
speak to him and ask him a question," was the reply. 
The man said: " He will not answer you. He has 
just been taking the sacred oath, and has sworn that 
for nine days he will not speak to anybody except by 



TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 271 

signs. At the end of the nine days he will go back 
to the place where he came from, and after that he 
will converse as of old." It seemed of no use to 
trouble him any more, but after the nine days were 
over Mr. Fuller went to his house. He was sitting 
at the door, and this bullock's horn that he had worn 
across his breast was hanging across the threshold of 
his door. His visitor looked at it, and then looked 
at him, and said: "Do you mean to tell me that a 
big man like you, in such a position as you are, be- 
lieves in such a foolish charm as that?" The man 
was rather insulted. "What do you mean? " he said. 
" Why! look at that! Do you mean to say that such 
a thing has any power in it ? Let me take my pen- 
knife and open it, and I will show you what is in it." 
There was nothing there but some red clay, parrots' 
feathers, dogs' teeth, pieces of the skins of animals, 
some of his own hair, and a little bit of his own toe- 
nail. " Do you mean to tell me that you believe in 
that stuff?" He answered: "Believe it? Yes. If 
I have that horn hanging at my door no witch will 
dare to come into my house. If she came, before 
she crossed the threshold of my door she would be 
dead." Mr. Fuller again remonstrated: "You do 
not believe such rubbish, do you? " "I do. And 
the reason why you missionaries all die, is that you 
come into this country, and the witches know that 
you have nothing to keep off the power of their 
witchcraft, and so they kill you; but they will not 
come near me because they know that I have got a 
charm that will stop them." 

Mr. Fuller made it his business to visit that man 
day after day, and try to convince him ; but it seemed 
of no use. He could do nothing. Six months after 
that time, he was sitting in his little study and heard 
the drum that tells of death. He knew what it meant. 
When a chief dies, the sound of that drum tells the 
tale, and the missionary has to be immediately on 
the move to prevent cruelty. He took his hat 



272 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

directly, and started up, and got to the chief's hut. 
" Mikani, who is dead?" He hung his head down 
for a minute, and then he said: "One of those 
princes that were with me on that day." "Why," 
said Mr. Fuller, "you told me that the man that had 
got that charm would not die. Did not that prince 
wear one of these horns?" "Yes." "Did he not 
have a cap?" "Yes." "Was he not protected 
by that same charm? Then, how is it that he 
is dead? " The poor savage hung his head down 
for a moment. Then lifting it up he looked full 
into the missionary's face for a few moments and 
was silent. Finally, he stretched out his hand and 
took hold of the horn as it hung across the door, and 
removed it from its place and flung it across the 
road, and said: "I will try your way." Where is he 
to-day? Go to the Cameroons, and you will see a 
native minister there preaching the gospel; but on 
the right hand of that native preacher sits a gray- 
headed man, and the very look of that man's face 
tells us of his inward peace and happiness. He is 
the same man. He has tried and found that there is 
none other name given among men whereby we must 
be saved but the name of Jesus Christ. He is the 
head deacon of the Church, and the membership is 
now about seven hundred. There is a congregation 
of perhaps a thousand gathering together there now. 
Yet when Mr. Fuller landed in 1845, less than fifty 
years since, these people were rank savages, brutal 
in every act, — naked, depraved, cruel, vicious sav- 
ages; and to-day, clothed and in their right mind, 
they meet as a Christian congregation, with their dark 
faces and their bright eyes, worshipping the same 
Saviour that we love; — and if this is true in such a 
community, we know that the gospel of our Lord 
Jesus Christ will win its way wherever it goes. 



TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 273 

The Pentecost on the Congo. 

Few tales of missionary experience surpass for 
thrilling interest that of the work of the past fifteen 
years at Banza Manteke. In 1879, Rev. Henry 
Richards went from England as missionary of the 
Livingstone Inland Mission, and, at Banza Manteke, 
one hundred and fifty miles from the mouth of the 
Congo, and ten miles south of its stream, established 
a mission station, afterward transferred to the 
American Baptist Missionary Union. 

Mr. Richards came to the United States in 1890, 
and told of the Lord's work on the Congo, — a story 
so full of interest that we present in these pages a 
condensed account, as worthy both of preservation 
and wider circulation. 

When Stanley travelled from Zanzibar across the 
Dark Continent, for a thousand days, though he met 
many thousands of people each day, he did not find 
one who knew the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1879, two 
missionaries were sent out to penetrate this trackless, 
desolate region. At length they reached Banza 
Manteke, and, unable to go farther, decided there 
to establish a station; for many villages were nearby, 
and the people were friendly. 

They had only one tent, and built a hut of the long 
grass that grew about them. There, in September, 
1879, Mr. Richards found himself alone, among peo- 
ple entirely unknown to him, as were also their 
customs and their language. He began at once to 
study them and then their strange tongue. Some 
things, however, he learned only too soon. He 
found that they all seemed to be thieves, and would 
take everything on which they could lay hands. 
They were equally adepts at lying; for when he 
would look into their faces and charge them with 
their theft, they would deny it with brazen-faced 
stolidity. 

He gives an interesting description of his experi- 



274 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

ence in learning their language. They had no dic- 
tionaries, grammars, nor literature of any kind, and 
no white man had ever learned their tongue. In a 
note-book he wrote down phonetically everything he 
heard, with the supposed meaning belonging to the 
word. In this way he soon had a number of words, 
phrases, and sentences, which at once he began to 
use. His hearers often laughed at his mispronunci- 
ations and his awkward blunders in putting words 
together; but he quietly persisted in his effort. 
Some words he found it very hard to get at. For 
instance, he noticed the strong affection between 
mothers and their children, and he sought the word 
for mother. He thought he had succeeded, but after- 
ward he learned that the supposed word for mother 
really meant a full-grown man. He was three 
months in finding out the equivalent for yester- 
day. 

He tried to get hold of the grammar of the lan- 
guage. He began with the nouns, and sought for 
the way of forming plurals, suspecting it was by 
some modification at the end of the words, but he 
could detect no such change. After much experi- 
menting he found that there were sixteen classes of 
nouns, with as many modes of forming the plural ; 
and in like manner he discovered seventeen different 
classes of verbs, with many tenses besides the ordi- 
nary present, past and future, each having its speci- 
fic form, the shades of meaning in these variations 
often being very delicate and beautiful. 

The language was found to be no mere jargon, 
but really very beautiful, euphonious and flowing, 
with numerous inflections. When once acquired, it 
was easy to preach in it and to translate the Scrip- 
tures into it. He says, "If some of our best lin- 
guists were to try to form a perfect language, they 
could not do better than to follow the Congo. It 
seems to be altogether superior to the people; and 
there must have been a time when they were in a 



TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 275 

higher state of civilization, from which in some way 
they have degenerated." 

After learning in this patient way to use the lan- 
guage a little, he began to study into the customs, 
superstitions and religion of the people. He found 
that they believed in a great Creator, who made all 
things, but they did not worship this " Nzambi," 
because they did not think Him a good God, or 
worthy of praise and worship. He did not concern 
Himself about them ; He was too far away. They 
had little images cut out of wood — some like them- 
selves, only with birds' heads, beaks, and claws; 
others like animals — these are their gods. They 
trust them to protect from sickness, death, disaster, 
but expect no direct blessings from them. They 
believe also in witchcraft, to which they attribute all 
evils and misfortunes, and which they counteract by 
charms. They send for witch-doctors, if any one is . 
sick, who with many incantations drive out the 
demon, or point out some person as the witch, who 
has to undergo the test by poison, so common in 
Africa. 

Mr. Richards sought to show them that sickness, 
death and other calamity are due not to witchcraft, 
but to sin. He gave them the Bible account of the 
creation and the fall, etc., and tried to show that 
God is not only a great, all-powerful Creator, but a 
kind and loving Father. For four years he pursued 
this course, thinking it necessary to give them some 
idea of the Old Testament before beginning with the 
New. But they were just as rank heathen at the end 
of this time as when he first went among them. 
There was no evidence of any change. They did 
not even feel themselves to be sinners. 

Then Mr. Richards went home for a season of rest, 
and, while there, spoke to some who had had much 
experience in mission work, seeking a clew to his 
maze of difficulty. He was advised to go back and 
preach the law — for that convinces of sin. So on 



276 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

reaching Banza Manteke again, the first thing he did 
was to translate the Ten Commandments and expound 
them to the people. They said the commandments 
were very good, but claimed that they had kept them ; 
and the plainest and most personal applications of the 
decalogue made no apparent impression. So two 
years more passed, and the people were no better. 
He began to be hopeless of doing them any good. 
He had gained their respect, and they were kind to 
him, but that was all. 

At last, in his discouragement, he began to study 
the Scriptures anew for himself, feeling that there 
must be some mistake in his preaching or lack in his 
living. In the Apostolic days souls were converted; 
why not now? Surely the gospel had not lost its 
power. If, in the days of the Acts of the Apostles, 
heathen turned from idols to serve the living God, 
why should not these heathen in Banza Manteke? 
He studied the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, 
and began to see that the commission is not, "Go ye 
into all the world and preach the Law" but " preach 
the Gospel." This was the turning-point in the work 
of this lonely and disheartened missionary! He 
determined simply to preach the gospel. Again he 
noticed that disciples were bidden to wait until they 
were endued with power from on high. He felt that 
he had not this power. He returned to his work, 
determined not only to preach the gospel, but cry 
to God for the promised enduement. 

It was needful to decide just what "preaching the 
gospel " means. If he preached Jesus crucified, the 
people would want to know who Jesus was. He 
decided to take Luke's Gospel as most complete and 
suitable for gentiles. He began translating ten or 
twelve verses a day, and then read and expounded 
them, asking God to bless His own word. At once 
his dark hearers proved more interested than when 
he had preached the law, and he was more and more 
encouraged. When he came to the sixth chapter of 



TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 277 

Luke, thirtieth verse, a new difficulty arose — "Give 
to every man that asketh of thee." But these peo- 
ple were notorious beggars ; they would ask for any- 
thing that pleased their eye — his blanket, his knife, 
his plate — and when he would say he could not give 
these things to them, they would reply, ' ' You can get 
more." Henry Richards was greatly perplexed as to 
what to do with that verse. He let his helper in 
translation go, and went to his room to pray over the 
matter. The time for the daily service was drawing 
near. What should he do? Why not pass over that 
verse ? But conscience replied that this would not be 
honest dealing with God's word. The preaching 
hour came; instead of advancing, he went back to 
the beginning of the gospel, reviewing the earlier 
part, to gain time for fuller consideration of that 
perplexing text. Still, on further study, he could 
not find that it meant anything but just what it said. 
The commentators said, Jesus was giving general 
principles, and we must use common sense in inter- 
preting His words. But this did not satisfy him. If 
he interpreted one text in this way, why not all 
others? "Common sense" seemed a very unsafe 
commentator. 

A fortnight of prayer and consideration drove him to 
the wall : the Lord meant just what He said. And so 
he read to the people that verse, "Give to every man 
that asketh of thee," and told them that this was a 
very high standard, and would probably take a lifetime 
to live up to it ; but he meant to live what he preached. 
After the address the natives began to ask him for 
this and that, and he gave them whatever they asked 
for, wondering whereunto this thing would grow; 
but he told the Lord he could see no other meaning 
in His words. Somehow the people were evidently 
deeply impressed by his course. One day he over- 
heard one say: "I got this from the white man." 
Then another said that he was going to ask him for 
such a thing. But a third said, "No; buy it if you 



278 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

want it;" and another said, " This must be God's man, 
we never saw any other man do so. Don't you think 
if he is God's man we ought to stop robbing him? " 
Grace was working in their hearts. After that they 
rarely asked him for anything, and even brought 
back what they had taken ! 

This humble man went on translating and expound- 
ing Luke's Gospel, and the interest continually grew. 
The climax was reached as he came to the account 
of the crucifixion of Christ. A large congregation 
confronted him that day. He reminded the people 
of the kindness and goodness of Jesus, and of His 
works of mercy; and, pointing to Him as nailed upon 
the cross between thieves, he said: "Jesus never 
would have died if we had not been sinners; it was 
because of your sins and mine that he died." The 
impression was very deep. The Holy Ghost seemed 
to have fallen upon the people ! 

He continued preaching the gospel and seeking 
Holy Ghost power. One day as they were return- 
ing from a service, Lutale, who helped him in 
translating, began to sing one of the Congo hymns. 
His face shone with joy, and he said: " I do believe 
these words ; I do believe Jesus has taken away my 
sins; I do believe He has saved me." Seven years 
of toil, weary waiting and suffering had passed, and 
now the first convert was found at Banza Manteke ! 
At once, Lutale began testifying what the Lord had 
done for him. But the people became his enemies 
and tried to poison him ; so that he had to leave his 
town and live with Mr. Richards for safety. For a 
time there were no more converts, but the people 
were stirred. By and by the king's son became a 
Christian. Shortly after, another man came with 
his idols, and placing them on a table, said, with sav- 
age determination, " I want to become a Christian," 
and he soon began to preach. The work went on 
until ten were converted, but all had to leave their 
own homes, as they were threatened with death. 



TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 279 

The missionary now shut up his house, and taking 
these men with him, went from town to town preach- 
ing the gospel. The whole community was greatly 
moved; one after another came over to Christ's side. 
Two daily meetings were held, and inquirers were 
numerous. The work continued and was blessed, 
until all the people immediately around Banza Man- 
teke had abandoned their heathenism! More than 
one thousand names were enrolled in a book of those 
who gave evidence of real conversion. 

After years had passed, Mr. Richards found the 
converts holding on their way. About three hun- 
dred had been baptized, and the native Church was 
earnest and spiritual. There had been much perse- 
cution, but it had failed to intimidate these new con- 
verts. Materials for a chapel, provided through the 
liberality of Dr. A. J. Gordon's church in Boston, 
were brought to a point fifty or sixty miles distant, 
and carried by the people all the way to Banza Man- 
teke, over rough roads. Some of the carriers went 
four or five times, each trip requiring a week. In all 
there were about seven hundred loads, of sixty pounds 
each, and the whole of these loads were borne with- 
out charge. 

Those who had been thieves and liars before, now 
became honest, truthful, industrious and cleanly. 
Witchcraft, poison-giving, and all such heathen 
practices have been put away. They brought their 
idols, and at the first baptism had a bonfire of images, 
destroying every vestige of idolatry ! Laus Deo! 

The Pentecost at Hilo. 

We have reserved for the last of these sketches of 
transformed communities, one which deserves a 
separate setting, as a peculiarly lustrous gem.* 

Titus Coan, nearly sixty years ago, in 1835, began 
his memorable mission on the shore belt of Hawaii. 

* Eschol. By S. J. Humphrey, D.D. 



280 



THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 



He soon began to use the native tongue, and within 
the year made his first tour of the island. He was 
a relative of Nettleton and had been a co-labourer 
with Finney, and had learned what arrows are best 
for a preacher's quiver, and how to use his bow. 
His whole being was full of spiritual energy and 
unction, and, on his first tour, multitudes flocked to 
hear, and many seemed pricked in their hearts. 
The multitudes thronged him and followed him, and 
like his Master, he had no leisure, so much as to eat; 
and once he preached three times before he had a 
chance to breakfast. He was wont to make four or 
five tours a year, and saw tokens of interest, that im- 
pressed him with so strange a sense of the presence 
of God, that he said little about them and scarcely 
understood, himself. He could only say, "It was 
wonderful !" He went about, like Jeremiah, with the 
fire of the Lord in his bones ; weary with forbearing, 
he could not stay. 

In 1837, the slumbering fires broke out. Nearly 
the whole population became an audience, and those 
who could not come to the services were brought on 
their beds or on the backs of others. Mr. Coan found 
himself ministering to fifteen thousand people, scat- 
tered along the hundred miles of coast. He longed 
to be able to fly, that he might get over the ground, 
or to be able to multiply himself twentyfold, to 
reach the multitudes who fainted for spiritual food. 

Necessity devises new methods. He bade those 
to whom he could not go, come to him, and, for a 
mile around, the people settled down — Hilo's little 
population of a thousand swelled tenfold, and here 
was held, on a huge scale, a two years' unique 
"camp meeting." There was not an hour, day or 
night, when an audience of from two thousand to six 
thousand would not rally at the signal of the bell. 

There was no disorder, and the camp became a 
sort of industrial school, where gardening, mat- 
braiding, and bonnet making were taught as well as 



TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 281 

purely religious truth. These great "protracted 
meetings " crowded the old church with six thousand 
hearers, and a newer building with half as many 
more ; and when the people got seated, they were so 
close that until the meeting broke up no one could 
move. The preacher does not hesitate to deal in 
stern truths. The law with its awful perfection; 
hell, with its fires, of which the crater of Kilauea 
and the volcanoes about them might well furnish a 
vivid picture — the deep and damning guilt of sin, 
the hopelessness and helplessness of spiritual death 
■ — prepare the way for earnest gospel invitation and 
appeal. The vast audience sways as cedars before a 
tornado. There is trembling, weeping, sobbing and 
loud crying for mercy, sometimes too loud for the 
preacher to be heard ; and in hundreds of cases his 
hearers fall in a swoon. 

Titus Coan was made for the work God had for 
him, and he controlled these great masses. He 
preached with great simplicity, illustrating and 
applying the grand old truths, made no effort to ex- 
cite but rather to allay excitement, and asked for no 
external manifestation of interest. He depended on 
the word, borne home by the Spirit. And the Spirit 
wrought. Some would cry out, "The two-edged 
sword is cutting me to pieces." The wicked scoffer 
who came to make sport dropped like a log, and 
said, "God has struck me." Once while preaching 
in the open field to two thousand people, a man cried 
out, " What shall I do to be saved? " and prayed the 
publican's prayer; and the entire congregation took 
up the cry for mercy. For a half hour Mr. Coan 
could get no chance to speak, but had to stand still 
and see God work. 

There were greater signs of the Spirit than mere 
words of agony or confession. Godly repentance 
was at work — quarrels were reconciled, drunkards 
abandoned drink, thieves restored stolen property, 
adulteries gave place to purity, and murders were 



282 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

confessed. The high priest of Pele and custodian of 
her crater shrine, who by his glance could doom a 
native to strangulation, on whose shadow no Ha- 
waiian dared tread, who ruthlessly struck men dead 
for their food or garments' sake and robbed and out- 
raged human beings for a pastime — this gigantic 
criminal came into the meetings with his sister, the 
priestess — and even such as they found an irresistible 
power there — and with bitter tears and penitent con- 
fession, the crimes of this monster were unearthed. 
He acknowledged that what he had worshipped was 
no God at all, and publicly renounced his idolatry 
and bowed before Jesus. These two had spent about 
seventy years in sin, but till death maintained their 
Christian confession. 

In 1838, the converts continued to multiply. 
Though but two missionaries, a lay preacher, and 
their wives, constituted the force, and the field was a 
hundred miles long, the word and work was with 
power, because God was in it all. Mr. Coan's trips 
were first of all for preaching; and he spoke on the 
average from three to four times a day; but these 
public appeals were interlaced with visits of a pastoral 
nature at the homes of the people, and with the search- 
ing inquiry into their state. This marvellous man 
kept track of his immense parish, and knew a church 
membership of five thousand as thoroughly as when 
it numbered one hundred. He never lost individual 
knowledge and contact in all this huge increase — 
what a model to modern pastors, who magnify 
preaching but have " no time to visit! " It was part 
of his plan that not one living person in all Puna or 
Hilo should not have the gospel brought repeatedly 
to the conscience, and he did not spare any endeav- 
our or exposure to reach the people. 

He set his people to work, and above forty of them 
visited from house to house within five miles of the 
central station. The results were simply incredible 
were they not attested abundantly. 



TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 283 

After great care in examining and testing candi- 
dates, during the twelve months, ending in June, 
l8 39> 5> 2 44 persons had been received into the 
Church. On one Sabbath, 1,705 were baptized, and 
2,400 sat down together at the Lord's Table. It 
was a gathering of villages, and the head of each 
village came forward with his selected converts. 
With the exception of one such scene at Ongole, 
just forty years later, probably no such a sight has 
been witnessed since the day of Pentecost. What 
a scene was that when nearly two thousand five 
hundred sat down together to eat the Lord's Sup- 
per ! And what a gathering ! i ' the old, the de- 
crepit, the lame, the blind, the maimed, the with- 
ered, the paralytic, and those afflicted with divers 
diseases and torments; those with eyes, noses, lips 
and limbs consumed with the fire of their own or 
their parents' former lusts, with features distorted 
and figures the most depraved and loathsome, — 
and these came hobbling upon their staves, and led 
or borne by their friends ; and among the throng the 
hoary priest of idolatry, with hands but recently 
washed from the blood of human victims, together 
with the thief, the adulterer, the Sodomite, the sor- 
cerer, the robber, the murderer; and the mother — no, 
the monster — whose hands had reeked with the blood 
of her own children ! These all met before the cross 
of Christ with their enmity slain, and themselves 
"washed and sanctified and justified in the name of 
the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." 

During the five years, ending June, 1841, 7,557 
persons were received to the Church at Hilo, — 
three-fourths of the whole adult population of the 
parish. When Titus Coan left Hilo in 1870, he had 
himself received and baptized 11,960 persons. 

These people held fast the faith, only one in sixty 
becoming amenable to discipline. Not even a grog- 
shop was to be found in that parish, and the Sabbath 
was better kept than in New England. In 1867, the 



284 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

old mother church divided into seven, and there have 
been built fifteen houses for worship, mainly with 
the money and labour of the people themselves; 
who have also planted and sustained their own 
missions, having given in the aggregate one hundred 
thousand dollars for holy uses, and having sent twelve 
of their number to the regions beyond. 

Christian history presents no record of divine 
power more thrilling than this of the Great Revival 
at the Hawaiian Islands from 1836 to 1842. When 
in 1870 the American Board withdrew from this field, 
there were nearly sixty self-supporting churches, 
more than two-thirds having a native pastorate, with 
a membership of about fifteen thousand. That year 
their contributions reached $30,000. Thirty per 
cent, of their ministers became missionaries on other 
islands. That same year, Kanwealoha, the old 
native missionary, in presence of a vast throng, 
where the royal family and dignitaries of the islands 
were assembled, held up the Word of God in the 
Hawaiian tongue, and in these few words gave the 
most comprehensive tribute to the fruits of gospel 
labour : 

"Not with powder and ball, and swords and can- 
non, but with this living Word of God, and His 
Spirit, do we go forth to conquer the Islands for 
Christ!" 



IV. 
THE NEW WITNESSES AND WORKERS. 

The New Acts of the Apostles tells, as we have 
intimated, not only of converts, but of those who as 
unmistakably belong to the "noble army of martyrs " 
as did Stephen or James. Converts from tribes 
the most debased have given proof alike of genuine- 
ness and heroism by the voluntary endurance of 
suffering, torture and death for Christ's sake. 

When the capricious and treacherous King of 
Uganda panted like a wild beast for the blood of 
Christian victims, he seized young lads whose only 
crime or offence was their ardent attachment to 
Jesus, and the consistency that, in them, rebuked 
his fickleness and inconstancy; and they were led 
away to die. The crowd followed them with jeering 
and mockery, led on by the "high priest" of the 
king's cruelty. But ridicule and sneer expended 
their darts in vain upon the shield of faith borne by 
these young disciples. 

They were, like their crucified Lord, taunted with 
their faith in God and their trust in His promises, 
and were burned to ashes to test their new doctrine 
of the resurrection. But the answer to all this was 
that of the prisoners in the Philippian jail — prayer 
and praise to God. The place of their death was the 
edge of the dismal swamp — Maganja; the bed of 
their torture a wicker framework built over a slow 
fire ; and the prelude to this awful agony was mutila- 
tion — the knife, then the flame. Butchery without 
mercy — then roasting with fiendish cruelty ! Not a 
murmur of complaint — songs of praise to Jesus, 
mingled with moans of agony and sobs of anguish ; 
and then the long silence that tells of the end ! Yet 
when another young convert stood by and saw all 



286 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

this and was threatened with a like fate, he only- 
dared these human fiends to do their worst, declar- 
ing that he was not ashamed of Jesus. 

Japanese converts have had to risk martyrdom. 
When in 1876, forty pupils of Captain Janes' school 
in Higo, in Kiushu, pledged themselves to Christ, it 
was the signal for open war. The leaders were with- 
drawn from the school, held as prisoners, some of 
them for over three months, and subjected to all sorts 
of intimidation and indignity; parents vowed to com- 
mit harakiri, unless their sons abandoned the Chris- 
tian faith; but they stood firm. Their Bibles were 
burned, their physical strength in some cases failed, 
and death was threatened; but all in vain. One 
of them was made the slave of the servants in 
his own home, and they were bidden to treat him as 
a devil-possessed man without human rights. He 
became an outcast in his own father's house, but 
stood like a rock. 

It must be remembered that, notwithstanding all 
the missionary literature of our day, the history of 
the work of the past century is but fragmentary, 
like the Acts of the Apostles. Especially is this to 
be borne in mind, that most of the facts concerning 
the development of native disciples on foreign soil 
have been gathered from incidental references in the 
biographies of missionaries. The major part of the 
history of native converts and churches is yet un- 
written. For example, there is as yet no published 
account of Dr. G. L. Mackay's work in Formosa. 
Who shall tell us the full story of converts and 
martyrs who belong to the New Acts of the Apostles? 
We must wait till God's Book of Remembrance is read ! 

Martyrs — yes, and missionaries, too, have come 
from the ranks of these converts. Not only have 
noble disciples, but valiant witnesses and apostolic 
preachers and evangelists, come from the Maoris of 
New Zealand, the Hottentots of the Southern Cape, 
the cannibals of the South Seas, the brutal Mala- 






THE NEW WITNESSES AND WORKERS. 287 

gasy, the Australian aborigines — Nazareths of pa- 
ganism whence even Christian disciples once thought 
no good thing — certainly no prophet — could come. 

The ministry is the flower of church life, and,, 
therefore, its highest product — its consummate fruit 
and hope ; for in that flower is not only the bloom of 
the beauty of the divine plant, but its fruit and seed 
— the secret of propagation. In the Acts, we trace 
the results of missions in the creation of new heralds 
who spread missions. And, in the new Acts, con- 
verts have scarcely been gathered into churches upon 
heathen soil, before, by a spontaneous movement of 
the new life, these converts themselves have been 
found going to the other unsaved souls about them 
with the good news — and outrunning the mother 
churches of Christendom in zeal and activity. The 
first mission to Micronesia was organized and 
manned by Hawaiian converts. It was the South 
Sea disciples that John Williams sent forth as 
pioneers to new islands and island groups ; and they 
won triumphs and bore away trophies where no 
white man had ever set foot. Bishop Patteson's ten 
years' work in Melanesia was full of pathetic 
heroism; and his native boys proved how sincere 
was their love to Christ and how ardent their zeal 
for His kingdom, when they offered to go and 
undertake work on other islands. The SoutJiem 
Cross, in the year of Patteson's death, bore twenty- 
nine of them from the missionary college at Norfolk 
Island to spread gospel light at their homes; and 
when the year ended, three hundred were at work, 
and they represented most of the islands from the 
New Hebrides to the Solomon group. 

The total force at work now on the foreign field 
is close to fifty thousand ; and while not more than 
one-fifth of the number come from Christian lands — 
including wives of missionaries and other women 
who are teaching — the other four-fifths are native 
evangelists, preachers and pastors, teachers and 



283 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

helpers ! So that the missions, recently begun among 
heathens and pagans, have already given to the mis- 
sion field four times as many workers as the 
churches at home have sent forth ! When converted 
Raiateans organize missionary associations, estab- 
lish missions in surrounding islands and support 
them with offerings of cocoanut oil; when the 
Samoans surprise the missionary by declaring that 
they are " Sons of the Word," and in eighteen years 
every island, within a circle whose diameter is four 
thousand miles, has heard the gospel, and all this 
mostly at the mouth of native converts, — the Church 
may well stop to ask whether mission-harvests have 
not yielded more of the seed of propagation than 
the crops that grow at home ! 

When, from Erromanga's shore, the relics of Will- 
iams's devoured body was borne to Upolu, his 
Samoan converts resolved to rear the cross on the spot 
where he fell; and at risk of like fate, again and 
again, they made the attempt. When Bishop 
Selwyn knelt on that tragic shore to ask God to open 
a door of access to those debased natives, it was a 
converted pagan teacher who knelt beside him. 
And when at length, forty years ago, the chief, whose 
club killed Williams, surrendered that club as a 
trophy of missionary triumph, it was two natives 
from the Hervey group who had effected entrance. 

Thus the triumphs of the cross are already to be 
found among all tribes and races, classes and condi- 
tions of men. As Dr. Flint has well said, "Com- 
parative theology is a magnificent demonstration not 
only that man was made for religion, but for what 
religion man was made." What missions can do is 
sufficiently demonstrated and illustrated by what has 
already been done. The individual is the type of the 
universal, and one community, of all others like itself. 
God has chosen enough of the highest from among 
the heathen to prove that none are so elevated as not 
to need the gospel ; and sufficient from the lowest, 






THE NE W WITNESSES AND WORKERS. 289. 

to show that none are so degraded as to be beyond 
the gospel's reach. Whatever doubt may have ex- 
isted as to the expediency and efficiency of Christian 
missions, that greatest logician, Experience, has now 
demonstrated such doubt to be unreasonable and un- 
founded. 

The most hopeless fields have often been the most 
fruitful in the end, and the harvests that have been 
longest in ripening have often been the largest in 
yielding. History is already so fulfilling prophecy 
as to render the most glorious predictions no longer 
seem incredible. God has thus emphasized His own 
command by the encouragements of rewarded toil. 
Facts are His new trumpets that sound His new sig- 
nals. The world lies before us, open to access; a 
thousand millions of human beings wait for the mes- 
sage. To go and give the gospel is to impart infinite 
blessing, and yet increase our own riches of grace in 
imparting. Every motive — whether drawn from the 
voice of authority that spoke on Galilean hills, or 
from the wail of human woe and want that comes up 
like the moan and sob of many waters telling of 
wrecks and drowning souls — every conceivable incen- 
tive, whether found in devotion to our Lord or pas- 
sion for men; in the humane sympathy that would 
relieve man's present misery, or the holier self-sacri- 
fice that would uplift and redeem immortal souls — 
every motive and incentive unite to urge us to 
bear to the earth's utmost end the tidings of the 
cross. Let us tell men what Christ has done for the 
world and its sins and sorrows — let us assure them 
that the Son of David even now rides triumphant and 
comes near to His temple — that they may meet him 
with their waving palms, and holy hosannas, and 
cry, " Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the 
Lord !" — and so the final Palm Sunday of the ages 
shall be ushered in when out of millions of mouths 
of babes and sucklings, new-born into the kingdom, 
His praise shall be perfected ! 



Part V. 
NEW SIGNS AND WONDERS 



THE NEW MIRACLES. 

The law of correlation, in nature, finds every ca- 
pacity filled and every craving fed, so that the bird's 
wing and fish's fin become prophecies of the atmos- 
phere and the water, as the eye and ear imply sights 
and sounds. 

The same law holds true in the spiritual world. 
The capacity and craving for the marvellous and 
wonderful is akin to adoration, which is a higher, 
holier form of admiration. God's work of creation 
constantly appeals to the sense of the marvellous; 
and, ever since the creation of the world, His invisi- 
ble attributes, His power and Godhead, have been 
clearly seen. Man's own body has been fearfully 
and wonderfully made and constrains him to adore 
his Creator. And so it is in the kingdom of provi- 
dence and grace. It needs but an open eye to see 
the working of a supernatural Power : the abundant 
proofs of the divine handiwork leave all observers 
"without excuse." 

It may seem without warrant and even irreverent 
to apply to the wonders wrought in our age the term 
"miracles of missions." But a miracle is no more or 
less than a wonder and a sign combined : — a wonder, 
for if not out of the common course it would attract 
no attention ; a sign, for if not contrary to, or supe- 
rior to, the working of natural causes, it would not 
show to man a higher Hand at work. With such 
limitations upon the term, we need not hesitate to 
affirm that modern missionary history furnishes an 
array of miracles which form the greatest treatise 
on apologetics ever given to the human race. 

To those who deny or doubt a divine mind and 
method back of the stage of events, with its changes 



294 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

of scene and actors — to all who are sceptical as to a 
presence and power above man which goes with the 
gospel, the one sufficient answer is, missions to the 
heathen ! 

Proofs and examples of this have not been wanting 
in previous pages, as seen in the opening of doors, 
the calling of apostles, the raising up of converts who 
have proved both evangelists and martyrs. Through 
the whole study of the theme thus far the golden 
thread of a divine plan and performance has been 
traced. He who holds the Key of David, who open- 
eth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man 
openeth, has been seen unlocking the iron gates and 
bursting bolts and bars. The new Pentecosts reveal 
the Hand that alone can open the windows of heaven 
and pour out the blessing which comes only from 
above. A divine Voice alone could have called out 
labourers from an apathetic and unwilling Church, 
and sent them forth at the times and to the points 
most needful, and only He whose existence and pur- 
pose span the ages could have kept up this unbroken 
succession of workmen. God has been visiting his 
people by Voices and Visions, and training them for 
new service ; and the harvests already reaped argue 
a divine husbandry. All our paths thus far have 
been through the territory where Jehovah has 
worked wonders. A Pillar of cloud and fire has gone 
before the missionary host — and has led them through 
deep waters on dry ground, past the Burning Bush, 
the quaking mount, the riven rock, the routed foe — 
and all the way a table has been set in the wilder- 
ness and man has eaten angels' food. 

But a large class of divine interpositions and won- 
der workings, not so far considered, demands special 
notice, if the Plcroma — the fulness of the presence 
and power of God in modern missions — is to be seen. 

Two great miracles, one in the Old Testament and 
the other in the New, are the evident forecasts both of 
missionary methods and success, and we feel persuaded 



THE NE W MIRA CLES. 295 

that their typical meaning has not been apprehended. 
One is the Fall of Jericho, the other is the Feeding 
of the Five Thousand. 

Everything about the Fall of Jericho hints its 
typical character. The preparation of the people, 
the circumcision at Gilgal and the rolling away of 
the reproach — the resumption of the long-neglected 
Passover Festival, and the courageous crossing of 
the Jordan — are conditions of the display of God's 
power. Then Jericho was the first stronghold which 
they encountered and stands for world conquest. 

Note the circumstances: Exact obedience to the 
divine command, circumscribing the doomed city, 
marching round and round it, till thirteen circuits 
were accomplished with the "soles of their feet," 
which was the prescribed law of occupation or taking 
possession by appropriation. How obviously the 
blowing of the trumpets represents the sevenfold 
proclamation of the gospel, the jubilee trump, an- 
nouncing the acceptable year of the Lord ; and what 
was that shout of victory before the walls fell, but the 
anticipation of faith counting things that are not as 
though they were, because God had promised! 
How plainly does the falling of those walls of the 
doomed city, before one blow was struck, teach us 
dependence, not on human might or power, but on 
the good Spirit of the Lord, and teach us that the 
weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty 
through God to the pulling down of strongholds! 
How inadequate human means are! God must 
interpose to do the real work and achieve the real 
victory Himself. He will not give His glory to 
another, and the consummation is all His own. 

When, from this miracle which stands at the be- 
ginning of the conquest of Canaan, we turn to Pente- 
cost, which strangely prefaces the beginning of 
gospel wars of conquest, we see Jericho interpreted. 
Peter's sermon was the blowing of the rams' horns, 
and the immediate and resistless prostration of the 



296 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

walls of Jewish bigotry, self-righteousness and hard- 
heartedness, — was the divine razing to the ground of 
barriers to gospel entrance. 

Now turn to the great New Testament miracle, 
when the five loaves and two fishes fed the five 
thousand. Here is the second great lesson of obedi- 
ence and dependence. A world is to be reached and 
every creature fed. Our force is inadequate. 
' ' What are all these among so many ? " Nevertheless, 
" give ye them to eat." District the world, go to 
work on a definite plan of distribution of field and 
labourers — bring what you have of money and means, 
Bibles and workers, to Jesus for His blessing. Take 
no account of the inadequacy of your supplies, but 
do exactly as He bids and, with what you have, 
undertake for Him, expecting Him to multiply as 
you divide. How often is this lesson taught through- 
out God's Word ! the unwasting barrel of meal and 
flask of oil, the unexhausted cruise of the widow,* the 
divine independence of power and wealth and wisdom, 
of numbers and natural means, — all teach us that 
things impossible with men are possible with 
God. 

What greater impulse could be imparted to world- 
wide missions than this — that the Church should 
recognize and realize that it is her salvation to be in 
straits ! because the utter despair of self-sufficiency 
teaches her that her sufficiency is of God. Our 
emergency is His opportunity. If the fewness of 
labourers drives us to pray the Lord of the harvest, 
that He will thrust forth labourers into His harvest- 
field, He will be heard, saying, " Separate Me Bar- 
nabas and Saul," and Barnabas and Saul will be 
found ready. If our poverty of resources leads us 
to look to Him who alone can supply the ever recur- 
ring and increasing need; if the vast host and 
mighty power of our foes leads us to spread out our 
case before the Lord, and plead for His might 

I. Kings xvii. 9-16 ; II. Kings iv. 1-6. 



THE NE W MIR A CLES. 297 

against this great company — success is assured. 
And, whenever in such spirit, the crises of the king- 
dom are met, He interposes! 

The Acts of the Apostles records God's sure work- 
ing. Its pages flush with the glory, flash with the 
lightnings, and peal with thunders of the Eternal 
Throne. Christ's promise became reality, for, as 
they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord 
wrought with and confirmed the word with signs fol- 
lowing. It became plain even to foes that God was with 
them. His seal and sanction was set upon their words 
by works such as man alone never wrought. From 
Peter at Pentecost to Paul at Rome, every new chap- 
ter is a new challenge to faith, for it is a new display 
of divine power. Those tongues that flamed with 
Heaven's message; those sharp sword-thrusts of the 
Spirit by which penitent sinners were pricked in 
their heart, and by which Stephen's stoners were cut to 
the heart ; the healing word whereby the cripple, lame 
from his mother's womb, stood, and walked, and 
leaped ; the prayers that shook the assembly-room at 
Jerusalem, and the foundations of the prison at 
Philippi ; the judgments that struck the sorcerer blind 
and the liars dead; the healing virtue that invested 
with power Paul's person and Peter's shadow; the 
vivid visions of divine things, which made Stephen's 
face shine as an angel's, and Paul's heart peaceful in 
shipwreck; the close contact with God that taught 
Philip where to go and what to do, and caught him 
away with sudden rapture ; the personal appearances 
of Christ to the dying martyr and the living perse- 
cutor; Paul's sudden blindness and as sudden 
restoration to sight; the raising of Dorcas at Lydda 
and Eutychus at Troas; Peter's prophetic vision, 
and Agabus' prophetic warning; the angel visit to 
Cornelius in the palace and to Peter in the prison ; 
the Apostle's deliverance from the sword of Herod, 
and the tyrant's deliverance unto the sword of the 
avenging angel ; the supernatural Voice that at Antioch 



298 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

separated Paul to missions, and at Corinth assured him 
of safety ; the healing of the cripple at Lystra and 
the damsel at Philippi; the outpourings of the Spirit 
at Samaria, Cesarea, Ephesus as well as Jerusalem ! 
who can walk along this highway of marvels with- 
out seeing everywhere the signs and tracks of 
God's footsteps! We feel that the place is holy 
ground, the place of the Burning Bush, the Pillar of 
cloud and fire, the Angel of the Lord. We are hur- 
ried on amid a continual and continuous blaze of 
glory, for we no sooner emerge from the startling 
splendour of one miracle before we enter the pre- 
cincts of another. 

The whole study of the theme seems to bring us 
face to face with a divine Wonder- Worker, and the 
history is the pattern of His thought and plan wrought 
into the fabric of events. The new Pentecosts are 
His bestowments of blessing, as purely from God as 
the rain is from the heavens ; the doors which open are 
His gifts of opportunity and facility; in the modern 
apostles and evangelists His appointment of spheres 
and service appears ; in the control of His providence 
all creation is but a host — the armies that obey His 
bugle call; and in His gracious transformations the 
perpetual miracle is seen which attests the living God. 
Christ is on the throne, and at the same time on the 
battle-field. We seem to see the star of universal 
empire flashing on His breast, and the white horse of 
conquest makes the battle-field quake beneath His 
awful tread. 

Have the days of miracles passed, or are we still 
moving amid signs and wonders ? If the age of mis- 
sions does remind us of the Acts of the Apostles in 
its display of certain divine power, it matters little 
whether or not the mode of God's working is the 
same. The fact, not the form, concerns us. The 
signs of the earlier age may have given place to the 
signs of a later age. God is' not poor in resources; 
His fund of force is not exhausted; He needs not to 



THE NE W MIRA CLES. 299 

repeat Himself, nor does He ; His infinite versatility 
assures infinite variety. 

Moreover, it is probable that, for our new age, the 
signs and wonders wrought will be different, if they 
are to be equally convincing and conclusive, and 
equally suited to the present purpose of God and the 
present needs of man. In His kingdom of grace, as 
of the nature, the lower ever gives place to the 
higher. And, as Dr. Upham says : ' ' Through this 
invincible law, the lower physical miracles, of the 
time when our Lord was on earth, gave way before 
the coming of a higher order of spiritual miracles." 
The former belonged to a receding dispensation ; and 
in these things is the answer to the question: il Have 
miracles ceased? " Miracles have passed on from a 
lower to a higher sphere; from the seen to the 
unseen; from the world of nature to the world of 
spirit, where spiritual miracles are daily, hourly, 
wrought by the Holy Ghost, in answer to the prayer 
of faith — miracles far greater than those which typi- 
fied and prophesied of the later and higher miracles. 
Even if the earlier signs do occasionally reappear, to 
clamour for them is to long for and hold fast what 
belongs to a finished age, instead of going onward 
and upward. 

Careful research into the history of modern missions 
leaves on the mind this ineradicable impression and 
impress: that the facts, abundantly furnished and 
attested — facts as much above denial or doubt as the 
most certain events of history — simply defy explana- 
tion without admitting a divine factor. These facts 
are not few, scattered, exceptional, isolated; not 
done in a corner and lacking adequate authentic wit- 
ness. They are conspicuous and confident; they 
move in such masses that the march of their host 
compels their recognition. In this conviction the 
most devout and acute observers of missionary his- 
tory are agreed. 

From these modern signs and wonders a few rep- 



300 THE NEW -ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

resentative examples may be selected, drawn from 
all varieties of sphere and experience. And the few 
will suffice; when testimony has confirmation from 
agreeing witnesses, the mere number of witnesses 
adds but little assurance. And, if competent testi- 
mony does not carry conviction, it is vain to pour 
more light upon any eye that only meets more illu- 
mination by closer contraction. 

Mission history is both a demonstration and illus- 
tration of One who is present to preside and provide 
— a divine Director and Controller. There is an in- 
visible Actor, whose will is wrought out in the 
changes of events and the control of inferior actors. 
These instances and evidences of His interposition 
sweep round the whole circle of the continents and 
the whole cycle of the ages. We may trace God's 
intervention particularly in the following particu- 
lars: 

We may see Him opening doors of access, and re- 
moving barriers at critical points and periods. In 
some cases there has been a sudden subsidence of 
barriers which can only be likened to the sinking of 
the land so as to permit the overflow of the sea, as 
in the Hawaiian Islands in 1819, and Papal France 
in 1870. 

We may see Him preparing the work for the work- 
man and the workman for the work, where such fore- 
sight was impossible to man; controlling invention 
and discovery so as to develop civilization according 
to a preconceived plan, and furnishing new instru- 
ments and agencies in a marked order of succession. 
We may see Him obviously overruling human mis- 
takes and failures, frustrating the designs of enemies 
and persecutors; setting the limits and determining 
the direction of human lives and purposes. 

We may watch Him answering prayer and turning 
great crises to which man was utterly unequal, and 
when there was despair of all human help. 

We may, most of all, see God's power indirectly 




THE NE W MIRA CLES. 301 

modifying existing evils, and directly transforming 
both individuals and whole communities until, as there 
was subsidence of barriers, there is also an upheaval 
of the entire social level. 

All this is no human evolution : it is a divine revo- 
lution. The strategy is that of a General-in-Chief 
whose eye commands at a glance the whole field of 
the world, and the whole history of man, and to 
whom the future is as present to view as the past. 
Amid the drift in the direction of a natural scepti- 
cism, accelerated by the influence of infidel opinion, 
nothing more restrains and corrects such tendencies 
than the unanswerable argument for a personal God 
supplied by the history of modern missions. He 
who carefully examines it feels that he treads on 
enchanted ground, whose mysteries compel a divine 
solution. 

Of course, we are now dealing with matters whose 
very nature precludes mathematical proofs ; not with 
the science of quantity, but of moral probability, 
which demands moral evidence. And, yet, practical 
certainty is attainable, for moral proofs are conclusive 
when properly used. For example, the law of coin- 
cidence pertains to a department of moral evidence. 
God confirms faith in His interpositions by bringing 
together occurrences which so correspond as to 
exhibit an intentional mutual fitness. Hence, for 
example, Prayer and its Answer often so fit each 
other, in time, place and exact correspondence, as to 
make certain that God and the praying soul are in 
contact. And this principle must be admitted if we 
are to recognize signs and wonders, not appealing to 
our senses but to our reason. The greatest signs of 
God's presence in Apostolic days were found not in 
miracles addressing the eye and ear, but in the won- 
ders of such coincidence. When the first fish that 
Peter caught contained in its mouth the exact sum 
necessary to pay the tribute due from Christ and him- 
self, according to Christ's word, the coincidence com- 



302 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

pelled conviction that it was no accident. When the 
tragedy of the crucifixion was attended by six hours of 
dense darkness, and an earthquake ; and when the dy- 
ing cry, " It is finished, "and the violent rending of the 
Temple Veil took place at the same instant, even a 
Roman centurion could not but say, ' ' Truly this was 
the Son of God !" The Acts of the Apostles is full 
of these coincidences, which betray an invisible Hand 
guiding affairs. 

Philip is led to go down to a desert road at the very 
time when the eunuch is inquiring as to the true 
faith, and Philip's approach is at the very moment 
when he is reading aloud the very verse in prophecy 
which furnished the best text for a gospel sermon. 
While Peter had a vision on the housetop, the mes- 
sengers from Cesarea were knocking at the gate to ask 
him to go to the Romans whom he had thought unclean; 
and while many are gathered praying for him, he is 
delivered from prison and the axe of Herod's execu- 
tioner. The death of Anania* and Sapphira coming 
at the instant of an act of lying and perjury against 
the Holy Spirit, showed that God's judgment was at 
work; as Herod's awful death at the very time of his 
accepting divine honours, made plain that God had 
smitten him. Paul's conversion at the very climax of 
his triumph as persecutor, and when he was just enter- 
ing Damascus, left no doubt that he had seen Jesus in 
the way. These are a few instances of that coincidence 
which establishes a probability amounting to practi- 
cal certainty, that something more than the chance 
of accident had been controlling history. Thoughtless 
or uncandid persons often foolishly demand on moral 
subjects what they call, "mathematical proofs," 
forgetting that such proofs are in the nature of the case 
impossible, and we must look for quite another order 
of demonstration. But, when examined in a proper 
method and spirit, it will become scarcely less cer- 
tain that God is, and that He is the actual governor 
in missionary history, than it is that two and two 






THE NEW MIRACLES. 303 

make four, or that the three angles of a triangle 
equal two right angles. 

These "miracles of missions" are so numerous 
and various that we are again compelled to resort 
both to classification and selection. They fall natu- 
rally into two classes — miracles of providence and mir- 
acles of grace. The first includes all those interposi- 
tions of God which concern the control of individual 
lives, or governmental acts — which have to do with 
the general shaping of events, with protecting and 
providing for His own people, avenging their wrongs, 
destroying their foes, or raising up for them friends 
and helpers in crises. The miracles of grace include 
all direct or indirect influence of His word and Spirit 
in working transformation of personal character or 
popular life, and particularly in accomplishing great 
social revolutions which turn the world upside down 
and imply an energy superior to man. 

When Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch from 
their first mission tour, they rehearsed in the ears of 
the Church all that God had done with them and how 
He had opened the doors of faith unto the nations : 
and, as Paul went up to the first council at Jerusalem, 
he declared what things God had wrought by his 
ministry, and ' ' when they heard that they glorified 
the Lord." Mark the repeated emphasis upon the 
Lord's doings — what He had done, how He had 
opened the doors, what He had wrought — that all 
glory might be His. There has never been a truly 
great missionary since Paul, who has not magnified 
the Power of God in the fruits of his work, — who has 
not known and felt that what results he has seen 
wrought were accountable for on no other philosophy 
— and this is the most conspicuous testimony unani- 
mously borne by the most devout missionaries. 

Just where such recognition of dependence on God 
and such confidence in His power have most abounded, 
the grandest demonstrations of His presence have 
been seen. Pastor Gossner, at sixty-three, stopped 



304 



THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 



ringing the door-bell of millionaires and rang only the 
door-bell of heaven — and he put into the field one 
hundred missionaries who gathered 30,000 converts. 
Not what great things I have done or suffered for my 
Lord, but what great things the Lord has wrought 
for me, — that is the boast of the true missionary. 



II. 

NEW OPPORTUNITIES AND PREPARA- 
TIONS. 

Clear signs of a supernatural Providence are seen 
in the new opportunities of modern history. The 
hidden hand of God has manifestly touched the 
affairs of men in the unlocking and opening of long 
shut doors. 

The poet Dryden crowned the year 1666 as 
"Annus Mirabilis," because made forever mem- 
orable by such events as the great fire in London, 
and the naval war with the Dutch and their allies. 
The Marquis of Worcester entitled the sixteenth 
century the "century of invention." And a wonder- 
ful hundred years they were that saw the globe 
circumnavigated by the ships of Magellan, that 
covered the era of Charles the Fifth and Elizabeth, 
of Henry the Eighth, and Leo Tenth, of Luther and 
the Reformation, of the wars of France and the rise 
of the Dutch Republic, of the Diets of Worms and 
of Spires and of Augsburg, of the Council of Trent, 
and the final triumph of the Protestant cause, and 
the birth of religious liberty. 

But, in every respect, even as the century of 
invention, the nineteenth century has far outshone 
the sixteenth; and as to the "annus mirabilis," that 
one year, 1858, is probably the most wonderful year 
in the annals of history, for the rapidity with which 
on every side new doors opened for access commer- 
cially, politically and religiously, to the whole 
world. During that year, Japan, after two centuries 
of sealed ports, made treaty with Great Britain; 
China enlarged vastly the rights conceded sixteen 
years before ; India became part of Britain's world- 
wide empire, and zenanas were penetrated by Chris- 



306 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

tian women ; Italy laid the basis of her new era of 
freedom; Mexico threw open her doors to the 
Protestant missionary — all this and much more 
within a twelvemonth ! 

In that one " annus mirabilis, " two-thirds of the 
entire population of the globe were suddenly brought 
within the reach of the missionary who preaches a 
full gospel and carries an open Bible. It was that 
same year that the "week of prayer" began, upon 
recommendation of the missionaries in Lahore, and 
how quickly came the answer! From that year, 
missions entered upon an entirely new career. On 
the walls of history a divine Finger wrote, as in 
flaming capitals, certain words which should be the 
motto of all future enterprise for God: 

" Behold I have set before thee an open door." 
"The fulness of time is now come." 
"The King's business requireth haste." 
"The field is the world." 
"Occupy till I come." 

One must read the story of missions with veiled 
eyes who sees no miracles of providential prepara- 
tion. 

When the Thaddeus, in 1820, furled sail in the 
harbour of Oahu with that pioneer band of eighteen, 
who went to begin the long, and, as some thought, 
hopeless fight with a degraded and brutal paganism, 
what was their astonishment to find that, before they 
landed, not only had God opened to them a door of 
access, but He had moved a pagan priest and a 
pagan king to strike the first blow at Hawaiian idols ! 
Obookiah, the native lad, who in his impatience to 
get ashore had gone off in a small boat, had 
brought back to them, while yet on board, the news: 
"Oahu's idols are no more!" And they could only 
make the vault of heaven ring with their praise: 
Sing, O heavens ! for the Lord hath done it ! 

Was there no meaning in this opening history of 



NEW OPPORTUNITIES. 307 

the work of the American Board in those Pacific 
waters? Who was it that, before these missionaries 
had set foot on these islands, and not only without 
their agency but without their knowledge, had 
demolished the barriers of a thousand years and left 
before them a wide and effectual door? They came 
to Jericho, and before they had even marched around 
it, the walls are found fallen flat, and the stronghold 
awaiting easy occupation. When it is remembered 
that this mission was undertaken by that great mis- 
sionary society as a sort of test-work, in which the 
will of God might be seen as to future and similar 
enterprises, the whole of this unparalleled begin- 
ning reminds us of Joshua's interview with the Cap- 
tain of the Lord's host, who assured him in advance 
that He was there to lead them on to victory. 

Japan, almost at the other limit of the half century 
thus begun, may be cited as an example of providen- 
tial preparation. If ever a divine plan and purpose 
were to be seen, surely it is here. Was it an accident 
or mere incident that, after two centuries of exclu- 
sion and proscription, Christianity should find entrance 
to the Land of the Rising Sun, at the very time when a 
great social and political upheaval had unsettled the 
old foundations, and offered opportunity to establish 
a new order ! In no previous time of Japanese his- 
tory — certainly not since the year 1600 — had such an 
hour of crisis come. And hence the progress of this 
Island Empire toward national transformation and 
evangelization has been more rapid than anything 
known since the accession of Constantine. 

The preparation which Robert W. McAll found 
in France for his simple evangelistic work, can be 
compared to nothing but a sudden subsidence of bar- 
riers, such as we sometimes see when some seismic 
convulsion sinks the land below sea level and lets the 
waters rush in upon the submerged territory. 

When McAll went to the French capital in 1872, 
the war with Germany had left desolation behind it. 



308 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

Anarchy and violence had brought a new experience 
of the revolution of eighty years before, with its 
cruelties, bloodshed, lawlessness and godlessness. 
Even atheistic France revolted from the terrors of a 
society without God. It was a period of transition. 
The land of La Fayette was breaking her long allegi- 
ance with Papal Rome; Gambetta had thundered out 
his anathema against " clericalism " as " the foe of 
France;" and the nation, weary of a religion which 
was a wedlock of formalism and superstition, and 
whose offspring was hollow ceremonial and utter 
recklessness, was drifting toward utter denial of God 
and of all godliness. 

Just at this time McAll came to Paris and met that 
"man of Macedonia" opposite the wine-shop in 
Belleville, who, in unmistakable words, said: "Come 
over and help us J " That whole mission work is one 
of the miracles of modern Providence, raising up and 
thrusting into the field the right man, at the right 
hour, in the right place! The round peg dropped 
into the round hole, and the man and his work fitted 
each other perfectly. Just when it was needed and 
prepared for, France got, for the workingmen and 
the priest-ridden masses, a simple gospel, unencum- 
bered with churchly methods, without priestly forms 
and without price. 

Instances such as these are sufficient to convince 
even unbelievers that God's Hand is in missionary 
history. And, even if any one of the many exam- 
ples of such providential preparation were insufficient 
to sustain the argument for such divine Providence, 
their united testimony is overwhelming; they are like 
the threads which, separately unable to bear a heavy 
strain, may, when wound into one strand, defy any 
power to break them. 



III. 

PROVIDENTIAL PRESERVATIONS. 

Missionary history abounds in marvels of preserva- 
tion. God does not promise, even to the most faithful 
of His servants, absolute immunity from disease and 
death. It may be best that witness should be sealed 
in blood as well as seasoned with suffering. The 
servant is not above his Master, and the first martyr 
may have done more to save souls by his death than 
Paul did by his life ; but God has often stayed the 
hand of man, and many an imperilled witness to 
Christ has heard the same voice that Paul heard at 
Corinth: "Be not afraid, but speak, and hold thy 
peace; for I am with thee, and no man shall set on 
thee to hurt thee." 

When Martin Luther was asked at Augsburg: 
' ' Now, with Pope and cardinals, priests and kings 
all against you, what will you do?" he answered, 
" Put myself under the shelter of Him who said, ' I 
will never leave thee, nor forsake thee ! ' " Having 
the same spirit of faith, when Robert Moffat's life 
was threatened at Kuruman, he bared his breast to 
his assailants, and calmly replied: " Strike, if you 
will! but my mind is made up; I stay among you." 
The life of John G. Paton, that has recently thrilled 
all lovers of missions with its story of heroism, 
records perhaps fifty cases in which his life was 
threatened, or death by violence overhung him ; yet 
in marvellous ways deliverance came, so that his pre- 
servation seemed like a perpetual miracle. 

It is now nearly thirty-eight years since on 
August 19, 1856, Rev. William C. Burns arrived at 
Chao-chow-fu, in South China, on his sacred mission 
of evangelization and colportage work. Suddenly 
arrested, and the same night brought before the dis- 



310 



THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 



trict magistrate, it was decided to send him to 
Canton. The relations of China with foreign 
countries was disturbed. The Tai-ping rebellion 
threw China into a state of chaos ; and Burns arrived 
on the eve of a war which, that year, broke out 
between Britain and China. Had he come to 
Canton only a little later, when the events connected 
with Commissioner Yen were in progress, death 
would probably have been the result. In the diary 
of Mrs. Stewart Sandemann, of Perth, Scotland, 
under date of December 28th, that same year, is this 
entry: "Mr. Burns was safely kept through his 
arrest and imprisonment in China. Comparing the 
dates I find that we were met in prayer for him 
during his dangerous journey under guard of the 
Chinese officials!" 

For more than one hundred and twenty years, the 
Moravian missionary ship has sailed between Lon- 
don and Labrador, over those exceptionally stormy 
waters and amid fields of icebergs, yet with such 
freedom from accident that Lord Gambia declared 
the continued preservation of this vessel * to be the 
most remarkable occurrence in maritime history that 
had ever come to his knowledge. During more than 
one hundred and sixty years, during which about 
twenty-five hundred Moravian missionaries have 
sailed for foreign lands, in only eleven cases has any 
loss of life come by shipwreck ; and, of all the chil- 
dren of missionaries sent home to Europe, not one, 
says Dr. Storrow, has perished at sea. 

Missionaries in Africa, India and the Indian Archi- 
pelago, have, in hundreds of cases, had to face perils 
amid beasts of prey and deadly serpents; is there 
one instance recorded of death by such means? 
Livingstone was delivered from destruction three 
times in one day, and once his arm was crushed and 
he was shaken into insensibility by a lion. To the 
first missionaries to the Fijians deliverance often 
came when murderous foes were surrounding them, 






PRO VIDENTIAL PRESER VA TIONS. 31 1 

and their only weapon was prayer. Kapaio, a 
native of the New Hebrides, confessed that he 
watched to waylay Dr. Geddie, and when, with club 
in hand, he had him in his power, he became unable 
to deal the blow at the crisis when the man he hated 
and had followed in order to kill, was at his mercy. 
He confessed that a strange, new sensation came 
over him and convinced him that a higher power 
held him back. 

A little while ago a company of Breecks, a low, 
fierce tribe of Karens, made a raid on a Christian 
village, and carried off as captives, two boys and a 
girl. They said, " Now we will see; if the Christians' 
God delivers these captives out of our hands we will 
believe in Him, and all become Christians; but if 
their God cannot deliver them, we will go over and 
take more captives." 

Just at this juncture Dr. Bunker arrived at the 
village where all had been praying for help. They 
quickly told him, and he said: "Well, this is a case 
of God versus the Devil," and he felt strong to say, 
" God will deliver them; keep on praying." He sent 
a message demanding the release of the cap- 
tives, and got word back, ' ' Come on ; get them 
if you can; we have guns." He sent then 
what he called his ultimatum: "If you do not 
deliver up those captives we will leave you in the 
hands of our God, who can and will deal with you." 
Meanwhile he and the Christians prayed mightily. 
His messengers met the Breecks on the road bring- 
ing back one of the captives. He then selected one 
of his preachers and fourteen followers to go un- 
armed for the other two. 

When they got to the village they did not say a 
word to any of the tribe, but planted themselves in 
the road. The preacher took out his hymn-book and 
read a hymn, which they sang; then he read a por- 
tion of Scripture and preached, then prayed, and by 
that time the villagers brought the other captives to 



312 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

them and said: "Now take them, and be gone." 
This, of course, made a great stir among the Chris- 
tians, and led them to expect a great ingathering 
from the Breecks. The captives told them that a 
brother of the chief who stole the captives, himself 
an awfully wicked man, talked strongly about the 
wickedness of the deed, and the wife of the chief 
begged her husband to make peace while he could, — 
showing how God was working to bring about 
answers to prayer. 

Let Mr. J. Hudson Taylor tell for himself the 
story of his first voyage to China. 

He says: "The voyage was a very tedious one. 
We lost a good deal of time on the equator from 
calms; and when we finally reached the Eastern 
Archipelago, were again detained from the same 
cause. Usually a breeze would spring up soon after 
sunset, and last until about dawn. The utmost use 
was made of it, but during the day we lay still, with 
flapping sails, often drifting back and losing a good 
deal of the advantage we had gained during the 
night. 

" This happened notably on one occasion, when we 
were in dangerous proximity to the north of New 
Guinea. Saturday night had brought us to a point 
some thirty miles off the land; but during the Sun- 
day morning service, which was held on deck, I could 
not fail to notice that the captain looked troubled, 
and frequently went over to the side of the ship. 
When the service was ended, I learned from him the 
cause — a four-knot current was carrying us rapidly 
towards some sunken reefs, and we were already so 
near that it seemed improbable that we should get 
through the afternoon in safety. After dinner the 
long boat was put out, and all hands endeavoured, 
without success, to turn the ship's head from the 
shore. As we drifted nearer we could plainly see the 
natives rushing about the sands and lighting fires 
every here and there. The captain's hornbook 



PRO VIDENTIAL PRESER VA TIONS. 313 

informed him that these people were cannibals, so 
that our position was not a little alarming. 

' ' After standing together on the deck for some time 
in silence, the captain said to me, ' Well, we have 
done everything that can be done ; we can only await 
the result.' A thought occurred to me, and I 
replied, ' No, there is one thing we have not done 
yet.' 'What is it?' he queried. 'Four of us on 
board are Christians,' I answered (the Swedish car- 
penter and our coloured steward, with the captain 
and myself); ' let us each retire to his own cabin, 
and in agreed prayer ask the Lord to give us imme- 
diately a breeze. He can as easily send it now as at 
sunset.' 

"The captain complied with this proposal. I went 
and spoke to the other two men, and after prayer 
with the carpenter we all four retired to wait upon 
God. I had a good but very brief season in prayer, 
and then felt so satisfied that our request was granted 
that I could not continue asking, and very soon^vent 
up again on deck. The first officer, a godless man, 
was in charge. I went over and asked him to let 
down the clews or corners of the mainsail, which 
had been drawn up in order to lessen the useless 
flapping of the sail against the rigging. He answered, 
' What would be the good of that? ' I told him we 
had been asking a wind from God, that it was coming 
immediately, and we were so near the reef by this 
time that there was not a minute to lose. With a look 
of incredulity and contempt, he said with an oath 
that he would rather see a wind than hear of it ! But 
while he was speaking I watched his eye, and followed 
it up to the royal (the topmost sail), and there, sure 
enough, the corner of the sail was beginning to 
tremble in the coming breeze. ' Don't you see the 
wind is coming? Look at the royal!' I exclaimed. 
' No, it is only a cat's-paw,' he rejoined (a mere 
puff of wind). 'Cat's-paw or not,' I cried, 'pray 
let down the mainsail, and let us have the benefit ! ' 



314 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

' ' This he was not slow to do. In another minute the 
heavy tread of the men on the deck brought up the 
captain from his cabin to see what was the matter, 
and saw that the breeze had indeed come. In a few 
minutes we were ploughing our way at six or seven 
knots an hour through the water, and the multitude 
of naked savages whom we had seen on the beach had 
no wreckage that night. We were soon out of dan- 
ger ; and, though the wind was sometimes unsteady, 
we did not altogether lose it until after passing the 
Pelew Islands. 

"Thus God encouraged me, before landing on 
China's shores, to bring every variety of need to Him 
in prayer, and to expect that He would honour the 
Name of the Lord Jesus, and give the help which 
each emergency required." 

The following incident is related of a Chinese con- 
vert,* who had for many years been a vegetarian, to 
gain merit and be saved. " He came to the chapel," 
says the writer, " heard and believed the gospel, 
and for years has lived a consistent Christian life. 
Some time ago the people collected a large sum of 
money to be expended in idolatrous work, in order 
that their houses might be saved from fire, and asked 
this man to contribute to that fund. He declined, 
on the ground that he trusted in the living God, and 
that the idols were not able to save them from fire. 
No sooner was the idolatrous ceremony over than 
an extensive fire broke out in the very street in which 
this man's house was situated; one hundred and 
twenty houses were burnt down, and when the 
flames were coming nearer and nearer to his house, 
the people said, ' Now you see what you have got. ' 
And they wanted to persuade him to take out all his 
furniture into the street that he might save some- 
thing. He knew that if he brought the things out 
into the street, even though they would be safe from 

* "China's Millions," Sept., 1882. "Progress in China," by Rev. A. Foster, 
p. 52. 



PRO VIDENTIAL PRESER VA TIONS. 315 

fire, they would probably be stolen. But he be- 
lieved that God was going to preserve him from 
suffering loss, and he told the people so. While 
they were hurrying to and fro in all their excite- 
ment, he, in the presence of them all, prayed God 
that He would show that He was the living and true 
God. And then he watched the fire as it came 
nearer and nearer, until there was only one house 
standing between his own and the flames. But just 
then there was a sudden change in the wind: God 
had said, ' Thus far shalt thou come and no farther, ' 
and his house was saved." 

David Livingstone, returning from Central Africa, 
told of a great inland sea — Lake Nyassa. The Scot- 
tish churches and the Universities' Mission took 
possession for Christ — money and life were freely 
spent to evangelize Nyassaland. After several 
years the envy of Portugal is aroused: she sends 
Major Serpa Pinto to seize the country, and Cardinal 
Lavigerie is ready with his priests to station them in 
all the places where the missionaries have laboured, 
where the graves of Englishmen and Englishwomen 
are " the title deeds to Nyassaland." Is all this work 
for Christ to be overthrown? A spirit of prayer 
comes upon British Christians, and the Portuguese 
encroachments are defeated, not by the statesman- 
ship of Lord Salisbury, but by the prayers of those 
who sent out the missionaries, and who, day by day, 
cease not to pray on their behalf. Truly, "It is 
better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in 
princes."* 

In 1574, God, at the siege of Leyden, used the 
forces of Nature to compel the retreat of the Spanish 
armies. The Spaniards had derisively shouted to 
the citizens, ' ' As well might the Prince of Orange 
pluck the stars from the sky as bring the ocean to the 
walls of Leyden for your relief;" but, on the night 
of the first and second of October, a violent gale from 

* Missionary Reviaw of the World. Vol. iv. p. 26. 



316 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

the northwest and southwest piled up the waters of 
the North Sea in vast masses on the coast, and drove 
them furiously landward, till the ocean swept with 
unrestrained fury across the ruined dykes, and the 
relieving fleet sailed up almost to the walls of the 
city ! No wonder, as Motley says, that the enemies 
of Holland were struck with terror when they saw 
the hand of God send the ocean and tempest to the 
deliverance of the besieged city. It was the prayers 
of saints offered up in those times of great peril that 
preserved Holland from Spanish fury, as Britain was 
preserved from the Spanish and French Armadas. 

The missionary life of that " veteran of Aniwa " is 
one almost continuous example of striking answers 
to believing prayer. When the armed savages ap- 
proached Nowar's village and the people were panic- 
stricken, such prayer rose to Jehovah as can be 
offered only by those who stand consciously on the 
brink of eternity. The savages were only about 
three hundred yards off when Nowar touched Rev. J. G. 
Paton's knee, saying, " Missy, Jehovah is here. See, 
they all stand still ! " " We gazed shorewards," says 
Mr. Paton, "and sure enough they were all standing 
still. They actually began to turn and enter the 
remote bush at the end of the harbour." Why they 
turned back no man can tell. God was interfering to 
save imperilled lives. At another time when the sav- 
ages surrounded the mission-house, and set fire to the 
church and the fence connecting the church and the 
dwelling, Mr. Paton ran out and tore up the burning 
fence, while savages raised their clubs and shouted, 
"Kill him!" At this moment occurred an incident 
which his readers may explain as they like, but which 
he traced directly to the interposition of my God. A 
rushing and roaring sound came from the south, like 
the noise of a mighty engine or of muttering thunder. 
Every head was instinctively turned in that direction, 
and they knew from previous hard experience that 
it was one of their awful tornadoes. Now mark, the 



PRO VIDENTIAL PRESER VA TIONS. 317 

wind bore the flames away from the house, but had 
it come in the opposite direction no power on earth 
could have saved them all from being consumed. It 
made the work of destroying- the church only that of 
a few minutes ; but it brought with it a heavy and 
murky cloud which poured out a perfect torrent of 
tropical rain. Now mark again: the flames of the 
burning church were thereby cut off from extending 
to and seizing upon the reeds and the bush, and, 
besides, it had become almost impossible now to set 
fire to the house. A panic seized the savages, and 
throwing down their torches they fled. Returning 
to the house Mr. Paton was met by Mr. Mathieson, 
who exclaimed, "If ever, in time of need, God sent 
help and protection to his servants, in answer to 
prayer, He has done so to-night. Blessed be His 
holy name!" 

The reader of the two volumes of the " Life of 
John G. Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides," 
will not need to be told that the whole narrative 
evinces the interposition of God. No biography 
has done more in modern days to revive faith in 
Providential Preservations. 



IV. 



NEW JUDGMENTS OF GOD. 

We recognize wonders of Providential interposition 
in the defence of His servants and the defeat and de- 
struction of their foes. 

From the times that the stars in heaven fought 
against Sisera, God has not ceased to do battle for 
His own elect. And in not a few instances His " lit- 
tle flock, "few and feeble amid their foes, like lambs 
among wolves, have had only to stand still and see 
His salvation. Sometimes the Angel of Death has 
gone forth at His bidding and smitten the enemies of 
His people with a destruction as sudden as that which 
smote Herod in the midst of his fawning courtiers. 
Kings have conspired to cast, away His cords from 
them, and rulers have counselled together to break 
asunder His bands; but His sceptre has dashed them 
in pieces like a potter's vessel. 

In Siam, in 185 1, and in Turkey twelve years be- 
fore, at the very crisis of missions, when absolute 
expulsion of all Christ's witnesses was impending and 
final disaster threatened their work, sudden death 
came to the hostile monarchs who had flung themselves 
upon the bosses of Jehovah's buckler. These two 
cases may stand as sufficient to represent the class of 
interpositions we refer to now. In both cases the re- 
spective rulers were at the time proposing and pre- 
paring to drive out all Christian missionaries and 
bring their work to wreck and ruin. In both cases, 
all resistance was so hopeless that prayer to God was 
the one and only resort. And, in both cases, the 
death of the stubborn and malignant monarch, at the 
exact time when the plan was ripe for accomplish- 
ment, and the crisis of missions had fully come, was 



NEW JUDGMENTS OF GOD. 319 

felt even by the foes of God themselves to be an 
interposition of God, and turned the scale. 

When Sultan Mahmud thus suddenly died in Tur- 
key, the edict of expulsion found no executive to 
carry it into operation. On the other hand, Abdul 
Medjid who succeeded him, on the 3d of November 
following, in presence of an august assemblage of 
the nobles of the empire, not only the Mussulmans, 
but the deputies of the Greeks, Armenians and 
Jews, together with foreign ambassadors, ordered 
his Grand Vizier to read the Hatti Sherif of Gfil 
Hane, or first formal Bill of Rights, the Magna 
Charta of Turkey, and himself led the way in taking 
the oath of fidelity to this new Charter of Liberty, 
which prepared the way for the famous Hatti 
Humayoun in 1856 ! Thus, for more than fifty years 
missions have been acquiring more and more influ- 
ence within the dominions of the Sultan of Turkey. 

As to that other Land of the White Elephant, the 
turn of tide is one of the most striking in all history. 
Maha-Mong-Kut, who then came to the throne, was 
the one man in the empire who had been prepared 
by God to be the friend and patron of Christian mis- 
sions. He had been taught in science and language 
by a missionary, and in this frequent and familiar 
contact had become his friend and the friend of his 
fellow missionaries. He had imbibed from such in- 
tercourse a liberality of mind, a catholicity of senti- 
ment, which both fitted and disposed him to favour 
and further the work of the missionary. He was not, 
however, a Christian disciple, and had retired to the 
cell of the Buddhist monastery. But, on the sudden 
demise of the reigning and reckless sovereign, Maha- 
Mong-Kut was called from his seclusion to mount 
the throne of the " Sacred Prabahts," and, for seven- 
teen years, wielded a sceptre so benignant that he has 
been known as the most enlightened and catholic ruler 
of all Asia. Before he died he had decreed liberty of 
conscience throughout all the land, and his son and 



320 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

successor, Chulalangkorn, has followed in his steps. 
More than forty years not only of toleration, but of 
co-operation toward missions, have been the fruit of 
one unmistakable act of divine interposition in 1851. 
Could unwritten history find a record, there are many 
such interpositions both in behalf of individuals, and 
of the work of missions as such, which equally re- 
veal the presence and power of Him whose last 
promise was, " Lo, I am with you alway." 

There is something awful in the majesty of divine 
judgments. God's "great army" has not been dis- 
banded, though the prophet's pen no longer outlines 
their march and describes their regiments. Cater- 
pillar and canker worm, locust and palmer worm still 
obey His behests. 

What a desert of devastation, for instance, the 
locust leaves in his track! Think of an army of 
these invaders, reaching fifty miles in every direc- 
tion, and half a mile thick, with one hundred and 
fifty locusts to the cubic foot, and moving from 
twelve to twenty miles an hour ! It would require 
seven million vessels, each of six thousand tons 
burden, to transport such a host; and yet this is 
but one small detachment of God's "great army! " 

God calls for the famine and it does His bidding, 
and often strangely prepares His way. In India it 
introduced, in 1877, the greatest ingathering of con- 
verts ever known. In China, in the days of Morri- 
son, eight times it did the work of an evangelist 
and made full proof of its ministry by giving God's 
servants the opportunity to show the unselfishness of 
the. Christian spirit. A heathen people, dying of 
drought or flood, pestilence or starvation, see their 
fellows of the same nation and religion, stand aloof 
in utter indifference, while "foreign devils," 
inspired by a hated faith, labour night and day, 
daring all privations and exposures to feed the 
starving, heal the sick, and comfort the dying; and 
this goes further to correct false prejudices and win 



NEW JUDGMENTS OF GOD. 321 

men to Christ than any argument or word of wit- 
ness. Famine has been so often the precursor of 
"revivals" that missionaries have learned to think 
of it as an angel in dark disguise. 

In connection with that Pentecost at Hilo and 
Puna, there was a miracle of judgment that will 
never be forgotten. In a secluded valley of Puna 
was one small village which was a moral cesspool. 
Awful as was the heathenism about it, here it was 
worse, and the labours of Mr. Coan, so rapidly fruit- 
ful elsewhere, here, for years were vain and even 
worse than vain, for the people hardened themselves 
against God, and even sought to starve out his 
messengers. At one time Mr. Coan, with a little 
band of native Kanakas, went there to hold a meet- 
ing, and were refused even a half-potato; and at 
night lay down unable to sleep for hunger. While 
the villagers thought them asleep, they were seen 
eating the food which they had denied that they 
were able to supply for the Lord's servants. In the 
morning, the missionary left them, literally shaking 
off the dust of his feet for a testimony against them, 
saying, ' ' Never again will I come to you until you 
call for me." Not long after, this village, though 
forty miles from port where the infection was usually 
caught, was so visited by a scourge of small-pox, that, 
save three or four survivors, every inhabitant died; 
and in 1840, a lava flood swept over the site of the 
previous visitation of God, and left only a black field 
of death and desolation behind it. It is to this day 
a reminder of the destruction that overtook Sodom ! 
The people saw in it God's strange work of judg- 
ment and retribution. 



V. 

GENERAL ADMINISTRATION. 

.Japan is looked upon by the world as one of its 
modern wonders. The revolution, there wrought with- 
in a decade of years, has perhaps no historic parallel. 
The steps were giant strides: the fall of the dual 
dynasty, the change of capitals, the death-blow of 
feudalism, the adoption of a new calendar, and of 
the weekly Rest-day; the establishment of postal 
union and savings banks; national mint, lighthouses 
and coast survey; of railways and telegraphs; the 
reconstruction of army and navy and educational 
systems — these were a few of the prominent features 
of the New Japan, now also crowned with constitu- 
tional liberty. 

To some, there is in this no hand of God, but only 
a nation waking from long sleep, shaking his locks, 
quaffing the new wine of Western enterprise; and, 
conscious of gianthood, bursting old bonds and tak- 
ing huge strides forward. But there are circum- 
stances too remarkable to allow any explanation 
short of divine interposition; some coincidences 
which are both marks and fruits of a higher plan, in 
which, as cog fits cog in the wheel of a vast machine, 
event meets event in a pre-arranged harmony. As in 
Ezekiel's vision, even events which face different 
ways move together in one direction. 

Commodore Perry's initial act — when he laid an 
open Bible over the American flag upon the capstan 
of his flagship, and sent the words of the Hundredth 
Psalm echoing over Yeddo's Bay — that initial act 
was a parable in action. The mute guns of his war- 
ship spoke of a peaceful commerce displacing war- 
like invasion. The stars and stripes were the sym- 
bol of Western civilization with its liberty, civil and 



GENERAL ADMINISTRA TION. 323 

religious; and the open Bible and the sacred psalm 
forecast gospel triumph. God himself planned all 
the details of that opening scene, and according to 
that pattern the work has been built on those shores. 

All along the subsequent development of these 
forty years, we see the play of this divine mechanism 
— the wheel in the middle of the wheel. We shall 
need only to recur to the story of Neesima, as already 
given in previous pages. Apparently accidental, 
really providential — his disgust with idols, his 
glimpse of the Bible, his taste of a new faith, his 
escape to America, his contact with Alpheus Hardy, 
his Christian training, his service to the embassy, his 
return to his own land, the vindication of his right 
to teach, the establishment of the Doshisha — are not 
these the play of divine coincidents and coincidences 
in an articulated plan? 

After Neesima found Christ, and, while asking how 
he could get back to his country without incurring 
death for having gone away without leave — the Jap- 
anese embassy seek his aid as interpreter. Through 
them he not only gets safe conduct, but open door to 
his new mission among his countrymen; for, when 
he lands in Japan, his former patrons of the embassy 
are holding the reins of empire, and the decree goes 
forth to his opponents: " Let Neesima alone! " 

Watch the play of these wheels still further. 
Was it a mere chance that opened Kyoto for the 
Hundred Days' Exhibition, when Rev. O. H. Gulick 
made the acquaintance of that friend whose power- 
ful mediation not only furthered Neesima's plans for 
Christian education, but furnished the site for the 
Doshisha? And when the " sacred city " would have 
denied even Neesima the right to teach the Christian 
faith, it was Tanaka himself, who owed to Neesima 
his successful study of the common schools of 
America, — who was head of the department of edu- 
cation and turned the scale in Neesima's favour; so 
that he himself could only attribute his deliverance 



324 



THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 



from the " deep muds of the past " to the "unseen 
hand of God." 

Close search reveals in this curious fabric of Jap- 
anese history one delicate thread of divine purpose, 
wrought of countless fibres. Many of these provi- 
dential events belong to yet unwritten records ; but 
a further example may serve to confirm our faith in 
this remarkable guidance of God. 

Just when this great work of Christian education 
at Kyoto hung in the balance and final failure seemed 
to threaten, there came a strange accession of some 
thirty native Christian students as reinforcements 
from a most unexpected quarter. In the old prov- 
ince of Higo, in Kuishu, some " Jo-i " men, or 
" f oreign-expellers " — had banded together to form 
a school for the purpose of keeping out Western 
ideas, and especially the hated Western religion. A 
certain Captain Janes, who had come out to teach 
military tactics, but was without employment, by 
another most singular chain of events became the 
teacher. That man, says Dr. Davis, Neesima's biog- 
rapher, was himself a Christian. Yet so deadly was 
the hatred of the new faith that for six months he 
had to keep his Christianity out of sight; but mean- 
while he could not keep its influence from pervading 
the school — a flower cannot suppress its fragrance 
even in the darkness. At last he ventured to present 
the scientific argument for the existence of a God, 
and was met by a bold challenge from his pupils, 
" You lie, sir! " Two years went by before he dared 
to ask some more advanced students to study the 
New Testament with him. The patrons of the school 
consented because students must understand Chris- 
tianity in order to oppose it. 

Behold God's hand placing in the very hotbed of 
infidel culture, a plant of godliness ! and making the 
foes of the faith to give it room to take root, in order 
that they might learn how to recognize it and destroy 
it wherever found! God's armour-bearer is training 



GENERAL ADMINISTRA TION. 325 

the opposers of Christ in the knowledge of His own 
weapons; and, meanwhile, they are compelled to see 
that no weapon formed against Him can prosper ! 

Two years more go by. To study the New Testa- 
ment is to look upon the cross with its Crucified One, 
and before the infinite pathos of that cross, the win- 
ter in their hearts shows signs of melting under 
the beams of the Sun of Righteousness ! And less 
than five years after Bible study began its work, 
forty of those young men who had banded to fight 
the new faith, went up the Hanaoka mountain to set 
their seal to a new covenant with Christ and each 
other, to give their lives to Christ for Japan ! And 
these were the men that in the crisis reinforced the 
imperilled enterprise at Kyoto, and in 1879 were 
graduated from the Doshisha to become the best 
native teachers and preachers to mould the New 
Japan ! 

There are many other plain signs of the divine 
working in this well-jointed mechanism. Neesima 
was a conspicuous man from his connection with the 
embassy and the Doshisha, and ev*en the opposition 
to his work only gave his name and fame a trumpet 
voice. The graduates from his school were found to 
be commanding the best posts in the empire and con- 
trolling affairs by sheer force of character, so that, at 
the tenth anniversary of the Doshisha, it had proven 
its mission to be so useful that it had vindicated its 
right to be. Count Inouye himself gave the address, 
and so the government recognized a Christian school 
as a national blessing ! Before Neesima died he had, 
in a large Buddhist temple at Kyoto, pleaded for the 
new university, and over 60,000 yen had been sub- 
scribed. And five years ago the work of the Dosh- 
isha had already given to Japan nearly one thousand 
young workers for God. 

This story we have considered worthy of a large 
place as an example of the wonder-working of God 
in modern missions. Prominent as is the individual 



326 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

factor, its importance is found only in its connection 
with Him who alone controls history. This man was 
the rod of God with which He wrought signs. 

Neesima's biographer, already referred to, ex- 
presses the sum of all this forty years' wonder- 
working : 

" Let us realize that God still moves in a mysteri- 
ous way His wonders to perform in the world. The 
age of miracles of physical healing may be past, but 
we have before us the fulfilment at the present day 
of the Saviour's promise : ' Greater works than these 
shall ye do, because I go unto my Father ! ' " Then 
referring to the wonderful chain of events already 
traced, he adds: " This is as great a ' miracle ' as is 
recorded in the Old Testament or the New, if we 
except our Saviour's incarnation and atoning work. 
It is inconceivable that all these improbable things 
should happen and come together at just the right 
time, simply by chance!" 

The location and succession of labourers is another 
proof of providential administration. Who but God 
knows what sort <5f men and women will be needed 
at any critical and pivotal point of time and place. 
Yet with what divine prescience the story of mis- 
sions abounds! God has at the precise exigency 
raised up and placed at the great centres of influence 
the exact workmen needed. And they could have had 
no conscious part in this adaptation, for they did not 
know the field to which they were going, and still 
less did they know its peculiar wants. There were 
obvious pre-adaptations which far transcend all mere 
human forethought. How little Livingstone knew 
how his preparations for China were pre-eminently 
fitting him for Africa and his exact work in the Dark 
Continent! When McAll was amusing himself with 
architectural drawing, how little did he dream that 
his pencil was to be brought into such requisition in 
planning sallcs in Paris! When John E. Clough was 
training as a civil engineer, and persisted in going 



r 



GENERAL ADMINISTRA TION. 327 

to India, who but God foresaw that, in 1877, a civil 
engineer would be specially needed to complete that 
Buckingham canal, and give perishing Teluguswork 
and wages? Who gave Carey such native love for lin- 
guistic study and such passion for Cook's " Voyages," 
but He who meant him for England's first missionary 
to India, and the great translator of His Word into 
the many dialects of that vast empire? Dr. George 
E. Post little thought, when perfecting himself in 
medicine and surgery, that he was to wield a world- 
wide influence from Beirut, and make St. John's 
Hospital a vestibule to the kingdom of heaven. 

Was it no providence of God that at critical periods 
of missions raised up and placed at the great centres 
of influence the exact men and women needed? What 
a man was Lord William Bentinck, to take the gov- 
ernor-generalship in India during that memorable 
seven years, from 1828-1835. It forms an epoch in 
administrative reform, and in the slow process 
whereby the population of a province become recon- 
ciled to foreign rule, and even attached to alien rulers. 
With Lord Bentinck begins that modern history of 
British rule in India which introduced a benevolent 
and fraternal administration, wherein the good of the 
native population was the supreme end kept in view. 
Two memorable acts forever adorn his rule: the 
abolition of suttee and the suppression of the Thugs. 
So prevalent was the immolation of widows under 
religious sanction, that, in the year 18 17, seven hun- 
dred mounted the pyre in Bengal presidency alone ; 
and to-day, each of the little white pillars, so thickly 
dotting the most holy pilgrim paths of the Hindus, 
commemorates a suttee. In the face of determined 
opposition, both from natives and Europeans, this 
noble magistrate decreed Dec. 4, 1829, that all who 
abetted the suttee were to be held guilty of " culpa- 
ble homicide." And when the Brahmans claimed 
the right to follow their own conscience, which, as 
they declared, demanded that widows should be 



328 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

burned alive, he calmly answered: ''Obey your con- 
science, then ; but I forewarn you that an English- 
man's conscience compels him to hang every one of 
you who becomes responsible for such murder!" 

And then, as to the Thugs or Thagi — those bands 
of secret assassins bound by oath to commit outrages, 
and basing their vows on the rites of the bloody 
Kali — between 1826 and 1835, over fifteen hundred 
of these Thugs were apprehended in different parts 
of India. And thus gradually the plagues of India 
abated. 

Macaulay's graceful pen furnished that noble 
tribute engraved on the statue at Calcutta: 

" He abolished cruel rites; he effaced humiliating 
distinctions; he gave liberty to the expression of 
public opinion ; his constant study it was to elevate 
the intellectual and moral character of the nations 
committed to his charge." 

And so suttee and Thug outrages ceased ; and then 
infanticide — till, in 1863, the last link between idol- 
fanes and State patronage was broken. 






VI. 

MIRACLES OF GRACE. 

The remark of Prof. Theodore Christlieb is often 
repeated, that "in the history of modern missions 
we find many wonderful occurrences which unmis- 
takably remind us of the Apostolic age." And in 
view of the fact that, now as then, such hindrances 
to the gospel exist in the heathen world that the 
sense of divine things is dulled and blunted, he 
thought that supernatural exhibitions of power are 
heeded to confirm the message and compel attention. 
With such a basis of conviction that God's interven- 
tion is to be expected, the wonders recorded in the 
experience of Hans Egede, Spangenberg and Zeis- 
berger, Kleinschmidt, and the little flock in the 
Vaudois valleys, will not appear incredible. And, 
inasmuch as there is no hint in the New Testament 
that the signs promised as proofs of Christ's pres- 
ence and confirmations of faith were ever to cease, 
why are we incredulous as to the reality of the won- 
ders recorded? 

The New Acts of the Apostles have recorded sim- 
ilar triumphs of grace. In countless cases the moral 
miracle wrought at Ephesus has been repeated. 
Leaders of the people, who have made merchandise 
of superstition and imposture, have sacrificed both 
their profits and their prominence, their means of 
livelihood and sometimes life itself, rather than 
longer sin against God, or betray even by silence 
their former victims of ignorance and delusion. 
Who can count the cost to a Brahman like Sheshadri 
in India, or a Maronite priest like Asaad Shidiak 
in Syria, of renouncing a false faith and a lying life, 
henceforth to teach the hated gospel and bear the 
shameful cross! Hudson Taylor tells of one such 



330 



THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 



conversion in inland China, where a former leader in 
atrocious crimes turned the haunts of unbridled lust 
into the place of prayer, and himself became the 
witness to those whom he had led astray. 

In the Acts of the Apostles, they are the wonders of 
grace that overawe us, and not those of simple 
power. When the magians, already referred to, that 
clustered about Diana's great temple, were so 
wrought upon by the Spirit of God that their pride 
and greed, their lust of power and their lust of gain, 
were at once renounced, and the flames devoured the 
costly text-books of their occult arts, there is some- 
thing in such sacrifices that is sublimer than any 
mere display of force, though it were sufficient to 
shake the earth itself. We all know that selfish 
greed and social rank grapple men as with hooks of 
steel ; and we stand in awe of such proofs of divine 
working as were seen when all sources of pecuniary 
gain and superstitious prestige were thus voluntarily 
abandoned. 

Is it no sign of God's power when moral and social 
changes which the wisest men reckon among impos- 
sibilities are not only actually wrought but with a 
rapidity that seems fabulous ? 

For example, when Dr. Duff began work in Cal- 
cutta, he found that a cow had more rights and 
higher rank than a woman, and he said that to try to 
educate women in India was as vain as to attempt to 
" scale a wall five hundred yards high." To-day in 
the province of Bengal alone a hundred thousand 
women and girls are under instruction, and India's 
most gifted daughters are laying hold of the treas- 
ures of the higher education. Zenana doors have 
been unlocked by the gentle hand of Christian 
womanhood, and a transformation is already accom- 
plished which centuries of merely human wisdom 
and power could not even have begun. 

Those sagacious men who are God's seers look on 
this great change as the hope of this Oriental Em- 



MIRACLES OF GRACE. 331 

pire. Woman was taken out of man, yet even in India 
as in Eden, woman leads man, and through her heart 
lies the road to his head. Whatever system of truth 
or faith captivates woman, in the end captures man. 
Even those who see, can scarce believe what they 
see — a moral movement to-day in progress, by 
which the conditions of a half century ago are being 
reversed. What then was a wall of hopeless exclu- 
sion, the despair of the missionary, is now become a 
highway of access and the hope of final conquest, as 
before the victorious Macedonian the walls of Tyre 
were turned into the mole that joined the island to 
the mainland. 

Henry Martyn calmly said that the conversion of 
Krishna Chundra Pal, India's first Protestant con- 
vert, was as stupendous a miracle as raising the 
dead. What would he say if he saw the native 
Christians in that empire of Brahma, increasing 
eighty per cent, in one decade of years? 

When that first convert was baptized, in 1800, the 
islands of the South Seas thronged with hordes of 
heartlessly cruel savages. Cannibalism, their shame, 
was yet their glory; human skins furnished them with 
water-bags and human skulls with drinking-cups ; 
men's bones were their ornaments, and men's blood 
moistened their war-paint. How has it come to pass 
that to-day scarce a trace of these brutal barbarities 
exists through the vast Pacific Archipelago? 

From the commencement of the Bechuana mission 
by Hamilton Read, in 18 16, for over ten years no 
ray of light shot athwart the gloom. The Batlaping 
had open ears only to what promised temporal gains, 
and were deaf to all spiritual invitation or warning. 
When the sorely-tried faith of the missionaries almost 
gave way, there was a holy woman in the mission 
who never faltered in her faith. She believed in the 
promise of an unchanging God, and she said: "We 
may not live to see it, but, as surely as to-morrow's 
sun will rise, the awakening will come," When her 



332 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

friends at home would have counselled her to give 
up her forlorn hope and go to a promising field, and 
when Mrs. Greaves, of Sheffield, wrote, asking what 
could be sent her that would be of use — the sublime 
answer of Mary Moffat was: "Send us a communion 
sendee; it will be wanted." 

At that time there was not the first glimmer of 
day — it was the forecast of faith ; and it took many 
months for the letter to find its way to England and 
for the request to find fulfilment. And, meanwhile, 
the darkness seemed to deepen, and doubts grew 
graver as to the expediency of carrying on the 
Bechuana mission ; but her faith knew no change : 
it had its grip on the promises. In 1827, the gray 
light of dawn faintly appeared, and by 1829, a mar- 
vellous quickening began even among these stolidly 
indifferent natives, and without any human or visible 
cause. There was "a wave of tumultuous and 
simultaneous enthusiasm," which could not be due to 
the "sober-minded and hard-headed Scotchmen," 
who have a wholesome dread of sensationalism and 
emotionalism. But in a few months the whole 
aspect of matters was changed. The meeting-house 
thronged in advance of the hour of service — songs 
and prayers instead of pagan chants and dances — all 
at once eternal realities had come to the front and 
compelled attention. The dirt and filth and nudity 
of the natives were exchanged for cleanly habits and 
decent attire, and such a spirit of inquiry was 
aroused that the little Kuruman meeting-house re- 
sounded with sobs and cries that made it hard to go 
on with the usual forms of worship. And the first 
time the table of the Lord was spread in the Bech- 
uana mission, the same number sat down as at the 
original celebration in Jerusalem ! and the very day 
previous to that appointed for this ordinance, there 
arrived a box, long on the way, which being opened 
was found to hold the communion vessels Mary- 
Moffat had asked for nearly three years before — ■ 



MIRACLES OF GRACE. 333 

prophesying "we shall want them — send them 
on!" 

William Duncan took seven years — 1 856-1 863 — to 
establish his model state among the wild Red men 
of North America. When he first went among them 
he found nine hostile tribes gathered together, and 
when after six months he undertook to preach his 
first sermon, he dared not bring them into one assem- 
bly, but delivered it nine times the same day to as 
many different groups; and when Lord Dufferin, 
Governor-General of Canada, went to see Duncan's 
Metlakahtla, he could find no terms in the various 
languages of which he was master, fitly to describe 
what he saw, but could only exclaim, "What won- 
ders hath God wrought ! " 

William Duncan went to Fort Simpson in 1856, 
where he found some twenty houses of fur-traders, 
and nearly three hundred in a long straight line on the 
Pacific coast, where wild Indians lived. 

Not long after his arrival he found a crowd of 
these savages on the beach actually tearing in pieces, 
and then eating, a human body. With the aid of an 
Indian, named Clah, who could speak English, he 
undertook to learn the languages of these wild men, 
and get acquainted with their habits. He found two 
distinct parties — " man-eaters," and " dog-eaters" — 
but more numerous tribal divisions. He began to 
visit them at their houses, and after working over 
eight months, wrote out that first plain sermon which 
nine times he read to audiences that numbered from 
fifty to two hundred. He opened his first school in 
the house of a chief, Legiac. At first he had such 
conflicts with their unholy rites and pagan supersti- 
tions, that even his life was in danger; but he 
persevered, teaching and preaching and visiting 
the sick, and the influence of the gospel became 
apparent. Feathers and paint gave place to decent 
attire. Even the chiefs were found at school; 
church-goers were numbered by hundreds. And in 



334 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

1863, he withdrew with fifty Indians to a retired bay- 
twenty miles off, that he might build there a model 
state, free from the drunkenness and other vices that 
were constantly undoing his work at Fort Simpson. 
Six weeks later, he was joined by three hundred 
more who entered into the covenant to abandon 
pagan practices and vicious habits. And so the 
foundations of Metlakahtla were laid. A Christian 
village grew with surprising rapidity. It was laid 
out with regularity, but its outward order was but a 
faint reflection of its moral order. 

Chief Legiac was transformed from a fierce and 
revengeful savage to a quiet carpenter, and became 
Mr. Duncan's chief helper. The Tsimean Indians 
developed not only into industrious tradesmen, but 
into artistic carvers in wood, stone and ivory, and 
jewellers. The natives bought their own vessel and 
set on foot their own commerce. Whiskey and im- 
morality were excluded, and Metlakahtla became a 
proverb for all the most beneficent fruits of Chris- 
tianity, and put to shame the oldest and best gov- 
erned communities of Christian lands, by its beautful 
example of the Power of the Gospel. 

Individual conversions weigh heavily in the scale 
when we are seeking proofs that God is supernatu- 
rally working ; but when to these is added the weight 
of testimony found in these changes that affect the 
whole domestic and social life, what doubt remains? 
We must take the whole range of human experience, 
of the sins and sorrows, curses and crimes of society, 
when we estimate either human degradation or ele- 
vation. Gcsta Diaboli must be known if Gesta 
Christi are understood. 

What lever is that which after thousands of years 
of worse than slavery is now lifting womanhood to a 
lofty level? In Asia woman has long found no wel- 
come at birth, no instruction in girlhood, no love in 
wifehood, no care in motherhood, no protection in 
old age, no regret in death. In Africa, sold for so 



MIRACLES OF GRACE. 335 

many head of cattle, she has often been more brutally 
treated; and in Persia, loaded like a donkey, she 
could not easily be distinguished from a beast of bur- 
den. Tabooed by caste, denied either freedom or 
society, counted as soulless, and both incapable of 
culture and unworthy of respect, she has been shut 
up in a domestic prison, and treated as a slave for 
service and a victim for vice. 

Where woman is thus dishonoured, we shall not be 
surprised to find the whole basis of society rotten, 
and can believe that the road leading to Juggernath's 
shrine is for fifty miles paved with men's bones, and 
that the altars of that monster are stained with blood 
and smeared with obscenity. We shall not find it 
hard to credit the awful sacrifices which slavery has 
offered on the altar of human cruelty, though it has 
bound and slain such a host of victims that their 
bodies, laid side by side, would thrice girdle the 
globe at the equator! 

Sin has made the earth the habitation of cruelty. 
When the old king of Eboe died, by the ju-ju rites 
forty victims were sacrificed. Nine of his youngest 
wives, their ankles and wrists broken, and in excruci- 
ating pain, were put at the bottom of the open grave 
pit, with the dead body, to await death by slow star- 
vation, guards being stationed about the grave with 
clubs to beat back any of them if they moved from 
their place. Other human beings were bored through 
the feet and hung from high trees heads downward 
to die in agony. And these are but specimen-pages 
from that bloody book of human history which records 
deeds of which it is a shame even to speak. 

The missionary who has witnessed the power of 
God unto salvation is not ashamed of the gospel of 
Christ. He sees it lifting the individual to his true 
level and putting him in his normal place. Naked- 
ness is decently clad; the hut or hovel, where beasts 
made their stalls side by side with human beings, 
gives place to neat and comely houses, where modesty 



336 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

is no longer put to shame, and order reigns. Children 
are nourished and cherished with loving tenderness, 
and breathe the atmosphere of a pious, prayerful 
home. Woman is dignified and honoured, wedlock 
sanctified, and family life glorified. Honest toil is 
respected and rewarded ; the serf and the slave are 
made free and independent ; ignorance and idleness, 
the handmaids of vice, are exchanged for virtue's 
habitual attendants — industry and intelligence. 

Isaac Taylor once attempted a catalogue of the 
great social evils: polygamy, legalized prostitution 
and capricious divorce, bloody and brutal games, 
rapacious and offensive wars, death and punishment 
by torture, infanticide, caste and slavery. From all 
lands where the cross has been set up and the gospel 
faithfully preached, these nine gigantic forms of 
wrong are either retreating or are no more found. 
A new standard of manhood is also erected, and new 
lessons in living, taught. So surely as Christ becomes 
Master, so surely do these owls of the midnight flee 
before the new dawn. 

Instead of polygamy, once more, as at the begin- 
ning, one man and one woman become "one flesh." 
The law, instead of shielding vice by legalizing it, 
becomes the avenging sword to punish unbridled 
lust; and easy divorce is condemned as the apology 
and refuge of "free love." Infanticide is branded 
as both cruelty and crime, fatal both to natural affec- 
tion and a good conscience. Aggressive warfare 
becomes highway robbery and organized slaughter. 
Bloody and brutal games are considered as lowering 
man to the level of the brute, if not the demon; 
and needless torture even of the worst criminal, 
inflicts a pang upon the community scarcely less keen 
than the anguish of the victim. Caste is seen to be 
an insult to God, because a dishonour to His image 
in man; and slavery becomes, to an enlightened 
Christian society, the breach of all duty and love 
both to God and our neighbour — the violation of the 



MIRACLES OF GRACE. 337 

whole decalogue at once — a conspiracy of man to rob 
and ruin, debauch and defraud, degrade and dishon- 
our his fellow-man — to make impossible a true life for 
the individual, the family, or the state ; to set a pre- 
mium on lies and lusts, covetousness and cruelty; 
to cage God's nightingale — the human soul — and 
put out its eyes, that it may become content behind 
bars and sing when it can no longer soar ! 

There are those who dispute the unique claims of 
the Son of God, and talk of Christianity as one of 
the great religions, all of which have their right to a 
seat in the world's parliament. But the difference 
between the gospel of Christ and any other religion 
is one not of degree only, but of kind. Let these 
claimants to the honour of equal rank bring forth 
their witnesses. Greece boasted her religion of 
beauty and art, wisdom and knowledge ; Rome, her 
manly virtue and martial valour, model laws and ideal 
state. Did the refinement and culture of Athens, 
even in the age of Pericles, or the noble statesman- 
ship and heroic courage of Rome in the days of 
Augustus, actually uplift society from moral degra- 
dation and depravity? Did these "religions" banish 
gladiatorial games and the cruelties of the arena, 
and aggressive wars of conquest? Did they prevent 
worn-out slaves and even aged parents from being 
turned out to die ; or, the modesty of maidens from 
being sacrificed at temple altars in the name of re- 
ligion? Did Athens or Rome build hospitals or 
asylums for the deaf and dumb and blind and crip- 
pled and incurably diseased? Let Buddha, " Light of 
Asia," and Brahma, India's saviour, tell us whether 
they made impossible the murder of the innocents, 
the funeral pyre and the torture fire, the car of Jug- 
gernath, the hook-swing, the bed of spikes, the 
caste walls, the child marriage, the worship of the 
cow and the trampling of woman? 

Now let the Christian missionary testify ! Where- 
ever Christ has found a throne, the arena is in 



338 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

ruins. Warfare yields to peaceful arbitration, when 
it is not needful as a check upon despots or lawless 
rioters and anarchists. The mercenary spirit gives 
place to the merciful, and poverty finds pity, and 
suffering is soothed by compassion. Christian lands 
build not only schools and colleges, but great homes 
where sickness and misfortune find refuge and loving 
ministries. Man's inalienable rights find their Magna 
Chart a, and even the animal creation profits by the 
compassion which Christ teaches. Christianity is the 
only faith that has ever been able to turn the world 
upside down, and restore the true and original order, 
so that where man had become the worshipper of 
beasts and the slave of his own lusts, he has once 
more asserted the supremacy of conscience and re- 
gained dominion. 

The whole history of modern missions abounds in 
the sublime. It is a panorama of wonders. Take 
one more example out of hundreds that might be cited. 
In Japan, without any injustice to the others who 
compose that noble band who have sought the true 
illumination of the Sunrise Kingdom, we may men- 
tion the name of John C. Hepburn, M.D., LL.D., 
as facile princcps. He arrived at Kanagawa October 
18, 1859; and, although not the first to enter those 
ports after the Townsend-Harris treaty of 1858, he 
has perhaps rendered to the Island Empire the most 
distinguished service yet permitted to any one man. 
In December, 1862, he located at Yokohama, doing 
daily dispensary and lexicographic work, and teaching 
on Sundays. For over thirty-three years he has been 
almost continuously a resident of the Island Empire, 
even his temporary absences being in the interests of 
Japanese civilization. During two winters he was 
in Shanghai printing his dictionary, and has more 
than once visited America. But over the entire 
empire for the period of a generation this man has 
been known as a medical missionary, an educator of 
the very first rank, whose services were sought in 



MIRACLES OF GRACE. 339 

vain at high prices by the Japanese Government; as 
a Christian statesman and philanthropist untiring in 
his devotion to the well-being of the nation; but 
principally as the chief translator of the Holy Scrip- 
tures. And no more sublime hour has been reached 
in the history of this awakening people, than when, 
after nearly thirty years of patient toil, holding in his 
hands the two volumes of the completed Word of 
God, he formally presented the Japanese Bible to the 
nation. 

When Rev. Dr. Inglis, of Aneityum, was asked to 
make a speech before the General Assembly of the 
Free Church of Scotland, and was cautioned to be 
brief, he said: 

"Fathers and brethren, we are told that mission- 
aries should content themselves with stating facts, 
and leave the Church to draw the inference. I wish 
to bring three facts to your notice. 

"First, I place on your table," suiting the action 
to the word, "the Shorter Catechism translated into 
the language of Aneityum. 

"Second, I place on your table also 'Pilgrim's 
Progress ' translated into the language of Aneityum." 

Then, taking into his hands a large volume, while 
he looked longingly on the pages that had cost him 
years of toil, he laid it on the table, and said: 

" TJiird, I place on your table the Holy Scriptures, 
Old and New Testament, translated into the lan- 
guage of Aneityum, and now leave the Church to 
draw the inference," and sat down amid a storm of 
applause. 



VII. 

RAPIDITY OF RESULTS. 

God shows His power both in the quality and 
quantity of His work; and perhaps no proofs of His 
energy are more convincing in the sphere of mis- 
sions than those furnished in the astonishing rapidity 
with which results of great magnitude have been 
wrought. 

This may be made to appear most clearly if we 
take a cursory glance over the entire century since 
Carey sailed for India, and, without tarrying at any 
point, sweep round the vast circle of the work ac- 
complished, and get at least a comprehensive 
glimpse of the stupendous changes wrought within 
these hundred years. 

Ninety-six years have swept by since mission 
history began in the South Seas. At least fourteen 
years of labour passed before there was the first con- 
vert in Tahiti. Then, and while the missionaries 
were absent from the island, Tuahine and another of 
the natives, who had been impressed with the truth 
while serving in a missionary's family, were found 
praying to God for a new heart. Then Pom are II. 
gave up his idol-gods; and, before the missionaries 
had again set foot on Tahiti, a wonderful upheaval 
of society had begun. Since that day in 1811, the 
converts, living and dead, in Western Polynesia, 
have numbered over a million ! 

Let us now shorten the period of our survey to the 
eighty years since 181 3, when the American Baptist 
Missionary Union was formed. Then Judson and 
his wife were its only representatives and Burma its 
sole field. For ten years he wrought before he had 
been able to gather one little flock of eighteen con- 
verts into a church. Those ten years seemed com- 

340 



RAPIDITY OF RESULTS. 341 

paratively fruitless. But when from across the sea 
the question was asked, ' ' Judson, what are the 
prospects?" his faith, undiscouraged, saw only a future 
as bright as the promises of God! We now look 
back over this four-score years, and, not excluding 
the first decade of years of comparative famine, 
what a glorious harvest the Baptist Union has already 
reaped! Taking the whole eighty years into our 
reckoning, one new Baptist church has been organ- 
ized on heathen soil for every three weeks of the 
entire time ; one new convert has been baptized for 
every three hours, counting in day and night ; and at 
least one in ten of such converts has become an 
active worker in the field, himself a seed of the 
kingdom ! 

Let us still narrow down the time to fifty years, 
and see what signs and wonders He has wrought 
who takes no note of man's calendar of time. 

In Turkey, more than twenty translations of the 
Word of God in the languages and dialects of living 
peoples have been supplied during the half century : 
an average of one new translation for every thirty 
months ! By Dr. Cyrus H. Wheeler and his co-workers, 
the banks of the Euphrates have been dotted with 
self-sustaining churches; and a standard of giving, so 
exalted and apostolic, has been erected, that where- 
ever ten disciples could be found, a church could be 
gathered which would support its own pastor. For 
each disciple gave a tenth of his income, and out of 
ten such tithes, a sum could be realized equal to the 
average income of the givers; and so the native 
pastor, willing to live on a level with his people, 
could have enough to keep him from want. Think 
of such model churches in territory newly occupied for 
Christ ! 

When, in 1878, the jubilee of the baptism of the 
first Karen convert was kept, the Kho-Thah-Byu 
Memorial Hall was joyfully dedicated, with its capaci- 
ous audience-chamber and various accessories. But 



342 THE A f EW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

what a host of converts had those fifty years seen 
gathered to Christ! not less than sixty thousand, 
half of whom were living to take part in the celebra- 
tion. Sir Charles Bernard reckons the present Chris- 
tian community at 200,000, and it has five hundred 
self-sustaining churches. 

In China, the era of missions properly began in 
1842; fifty years later, there were fifty thousand 
converts, and the ratio of increase during the quar- 
ter century between 1863 and 1888 was eighteen- 
fold! 

The fifty years in the Fiji Islands from 1835 to 
1885, saw changes so wonderful that they defy ade- 
quate description. When James Calvert went there 
his first duty was to gather up and bury the skulls, 
hands and feet, of eighty victims, sacrificed at a can- 
nibal feast. He lived to see the very people who 
had taken part in that horrible meal seated about the 
Lord's table to eat of the bread and drink of the cup 
that are the emblems of His Body and Blood. At 
the close of that fifty years thirteen hundred 
churches of Christ could be counted, some of them 
standing on the site of cannibal ovens, and out of a 
population of 110,000, 104,000 were habitual attend- 
ants at places of worship. And in no part of Scot- 
land could there be found fewer homes where no 
family worship hallows household life. 

Forty-three years were spent by Eliza Agnew at 
the girls' seminary, in Oodooville, Ceylon. She was 
called the "mother of a thousand daughters," for 
she had taken part in the training of three successive 
generations of Ceylonese girls; teaching the daugh- 
ters and even granddaughters of her original schol- 
ars. When she laid down her work, it was found 
that not a single girl who had gone through the full 
course under this saintly teacher had gone back 
unconverted to a heathen home ; and upwards of six 
hundred whom she had taught were penetrating with 
the light of the gospel the darkness of Indian zena- 



RAPIDITY OF RESULTS. 343 

nas ! It may be doubted whether a fuller cup of ser- 
vice has ever been offered to the Saviour of souls by 
any woman of the century. 

Look at the contrasts of thirty years in Upper Bur- 
ma, 1860-1890. When Theebau was inaugurated 
as King of Upper Burma, at Mandalay, he was a 
monster of cruelty, and the event was celebrated by 
a massacre so horrible that several hundred of the 
nobility, and even members of the king's own family, 
were among the victims. The sacrifice of human 
life was so common, that when the city of Mandalay 
was built, fifty-six young girls were slain, that the 
eight gates of the city might by their blood be secure 
from all invaders. To attempt missions in such a 
locality meant captivity, if not martyrdom, to who- 
ever undertook the work. 

Thirty years later, in that same city, the Baptist 
Missionary Conference was held, and during the con- 
ference the Judson Memorial Church was dedicated. 
Burmese Christians had given eight thousand rupees 
toward the cost; it was a native Karen choir that 
led the service of sacred song; and at the closing 
communion of the Lord's Supper, Tamils and Telu- 
gus, Burmans and Karens, Shans and Tounghus, 
English and Eurasians, Americans and Chinamen, 
representatives of five hundred churches and 30,000 
believers in Burma, sat down together to keep the 
sacred supper — bound in one bundle of life. 

Let us still shorten the time to a quarter century. 
Johann Gerhard Oncken, born Varel, Oldenburg, 
about 1800, and in early life a domestic servant, in 
young manhood opened a book shop at Hamburg, 
joined the English Independents, and became agent 
of the Edinburgh Bible Society and Lower Saxony 
Tract Society. In April, 1834, about 34 years old, 
he asked Dr. Barnas Sears of Brown University, then 
in Hamburg, to baptize him and six others and form 
them into a Baptist Church, of which Oncken 
became pastor; and next year the American Baptists 



344 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

made him their missionary. Then began a career 
so remarkable that it can be scarcely believed. He 
visited all parts of Germany and Denmark, preach- 
ing, scattering Bibles and tracts and organizing 
churches. He faced persecution and was several 
' times imprisoned; but, in 1842, during the great 
fire, he with his family and congregation so helped 
homeless sufferers, that the Senate publicly decreed 
to them the right of unhindered worship, and he 
gave himself anew to missionary work. 

Twenty-five years passed, and sixty-five churches 
with seven hundred and fifty stations had been estab- 
lished, with nearly ten thousand members and one 
hundred and twenty ministers and Bible readers; 
Bibles and tracts had been scattered by the million 
pages, and fifty millions of people had heard the 
gospel. Give us two hundred and fifty churches 
like Oncken's at Hamburg, and we can, in twenty- 
five years more, secure the preaching of the gospel 
to every human soul ! 

Dr. John Geddie was at Aneityum only twenty- 
four years, from 1848 to 1872. On the tablet reared 
to his memory we read: "When he landed in 1848, 
there were no Christians; when he left in 1872, there 
were no heathens." 

John Williams's course reached over but twenty-two 
years, from 1817 to 1839. Five years before he fell a 
martyr at Erromanga, the gospel had been carried 
over a circle of four thousand miles diameter, whose 
centre is Tahiti. There lies a vast Pacific archi- 
pelago, within whose circumference of twelve 
thousand miles are included the Raratongan, 
Friendly, Cook, Society, Navigators', Marquesas, 
Union, Austral, Gambia, and Solomon groups of 
islands, and Low Archipelago, as well as many 
others. Yet, within seventeen years, not only had 
every group, but every considerable island in every 
group, been evangelized; the people had burned 
the maraes, and given up their abandoned idols as 



RAPIDITY OF RESULTS. 345 

trophies to the missionaries. War spears had 
become pulpit rails for the gospel of peace, and 
the god of war himself had become a prop for the 
roofs of the homes where peace found dwelling- 
place ! 

Robert W. McAll's sixteen years in France, from 
1872 to 1888, finds no parallel in any papal com- 
munity. In 1872 he opened one little salle amid the 
lawless Communists of Belleville; sixteen years 
later, he had 112 salles ; and in one year held 14,000 
religious meetings, whereby probably a million of 
hearers had been reached. And even the govern- 
ment held out to him every encouragement in his 
work, declaring that police force became unneces- 
sary in proportion as McAll meetings prevailed. 
And all this amazing success was reached without 
any outward attraction of art. A free gospel for 
everybody, an open Bible, hearty singing, plain, 
simple talks, self-denying toil for souls — these were 
all the machinery. 

It is but sixteen years since the great Pentecost 
in the Telugu country : and the progress of gospel tri- 
umph during those years can be compared only with 
the rapidity of the work in the South Seas. Souls 
were ingathered with such amazing speed and in such 
vast numbers, that it has been doubted whether even 
the first Pentecost in Jerusalem equalled it. The 
church at Ongole became the largest in the world, 
numbering with its branches over 30,000 members. 
And the peculiar feature of this history is that the 
blessing is perpetual. No one ingathering has per- 
haps ever been so astonishing from first to last. The 
revival has known no cessation since its beginning, 
and nearly ten thousand souls were added to the 
Church during the eighteen months last re- 
ported ! 

Harpoot — that leading station of the American 
Board in Eastern Turkey, the seat of the Euphrates 
College, and the centre of widespread evangelism 



346 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

among the Armenians — has been the scene of a quiet, 
but powerful work of God. One of its most vener- 
ated missionaries, Dr. H. N. Barnum, once gave an 
account of fourteen years of labour, in preaching, 
establishing stations, training a native ministry, and 
carrying on all the work of evangelization and edu- 
cation over a wide territory. The question was 
asked: " At what cost was all this done?" And the 
answer was — for a sum less than the cost of the 
church building in which he was then speaking — an 
edifice worth probably 150,000 dollars! Fourteen 
years of such wide-reaching work at an average 
cost per year of somewhat over 10,000 dollars! 

When Mackay, at Formosa, kept his twelfth anni- 
versary, he sought to gather all his living converts 
at the Lord's table — and twelve hundred kept the 
solemn feast. Many had died during those twelve 
years, and much time had been spent at the outset in 
acquiring a strange tongue ; yet, notwithstanding all 
this, there was this rich living harvest of twelve 
years' sowing. 

Seven years were allotted to Johnson in Sierra 
Leone — among the chaotic mass of human beings, 
the refuse from the holds of slave ships, who could 
hold no converse with one another except through a 
bastard English dialect; who lived a life of un- 
bridled lust, habitual lying, thieving and quarrelling ; 
who had no honest trades to occupy their time or 
earn their living, but were fed like paupers and 
criminals on government rations. Yet, out of such 
worthless material, by God's help, he organized a 
Christian community, as out of the filth of earth the 
divine forces of nature crystallize gems, turning the 
miry clay into sapphires, the sand into opals, and 
even the soot into diamonds. 

A like period of seven years sufficed to establish 
among the wild men of North America William 
Duncan's model State, or Metlakahtla, a community 
whose industry, intelligence, virtue and piety were 



RA PIDI TY OF RESUL TS. 347 

incredible to all who were not eye-witnesses of the 
marvels of God's grace. 

Six years on the Hawaiian Islands saw almost a 
complete revolution. Seventeen missionaries had 
landed March 31, 1820, among a people where 
infant-murder, even by the hands of mothers, was 
common ; where modesty was unknown and traffic 
in female virtue became a trade, and every foreign 
vessel a floating Sodom ; where no marriage law was 
known, and the nation was rapidly coming to ex- 
tinction by its own vices. Yet, even here, in 1826, 
10,000 natives met at Kawaihae to hear the gospel; 
at Hilo and Kailua places of worship were built 
holding 5,000; and at the dedication of the church 
at the latter place, the rulers of the nation pledged 
it to the Christians' God. In every district of the 
islands, Christian schools were found, with a total 
of 400 teachers and 25,000 pupils. 

Four years, as we have seen already, sufficed at 
Hilo and Puna to work a transformation that finds 
no adequate symbol but the volcanic upheavals with 
which the Kanakas are familiar. The eleven thou- 
sand converts, gathered from 1835 to 1839, represent 
only one evidence of God's miraculous work. The 
whole reconstruction of the community, from its very 
base, was a grander result and a clearer proof of a 
supernatural power. Transient movements of sym- 
pathy and sensibility may account for revivals that 
sweep like sudden tidal waves over a wide territory; 
but the permanent creation of an orderly, decorous, 
peaceful Christian State must be traced back to Him 
who alone can mould lasting spiritual results. 

Three and a half years of John G. Paton on Aniwa 
saw a gigantic upheaval of the whole conditions of 
society. That story is as thrilling as any written in 
the new chapters of the Acts, and no narrative of 
missionary toils and triumphs is either more read- 
able or more romantic, more graphic or pathetic, or 
more abundant in proofs of supernatural power. A 



348 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

religion that in so short a time can transform a can- 
nibal island into a civilized community, with Christian 
home life, Sabbath sanctities and unselfish ministries ; 
that can develop ignorant, heartless, brutal savages 
into intelligent, affectionate, devoted Christians, 
must be more than human. One of the first mis- 
sionaries to this island, twenty-six years before, 
had been killed. In 1866 Dr. Paton went there to 
reside, and there are now 1,300 professed disciples 
on the islands of the New Hebrides group. 

Two years on Nanumaga wrought results not less 
marvellous. When Thomas Powell left a native 
evangelist on the island, the natives kept him wait- 
ing for hours on the beach while they sought to 
avert the wrath of the gods, for permitting him to 
land. He found literally an idol-god in every house, 
and began to labour, with no apparent hope of suc- 
cess or hold upon the people. Yet, in two years not 
an idol could be found; the whole population 
gathered in a place of worship built for Jehovah, and 
He was inhabiting the praises of those who had just 
before been abject slaves of the lowest idolatry. 
All the native children old enough to be taught 
were in attendance on school, and it is no exaggera- 
tion to say that the entire complexion, and even con- 
stitution, of Nanumagan society was changed. 

We may shorten the period of survey to a single 
year, and we yet find signs and wonders. Not only 
does Ongole furnish us an example of 10,000 converts 
baptized in the one year, 1878, but during that same 
year, in Tinnevelly and various other places in 
Southern India, so great was the harvest gathered, 
that it has been computed that 50,000 turned from 
idols in that single twelvemonth. 

And what shall we say when one day proves with 
God as a thousand years? When Titus Coan, on one 
Sabbath in July, 1838, baptized over 1,700, it was 
thought scarcely credible that such oversight and 
scrutiny could have been exercised as to keep out 



RAPIDITY OF RESULTS. 349 

unworthy candidates. But, forty years later, Jewett 
and Clough baptized in one day over five hundred 
more than Coan had; and that only after the most 
rigid examination, lest unworthy persons should find 
their way into the waters of baptism. 

Surely the triumphs of grace already recorded in 
these pages belong to signs and wonders inexplica- 
ble by human power. Idolatry, the most degraded 
in type and the most prolific in fruit, confronted, 
conquered, uprooted, destroyed! Jeremiah re- 
proached Judah with having gods as many as cities;* 
but in Nanumaga every hovel had an idol, and in 
India more deities are worshipped than the wor- 
shippers themselves number. Obstacles have been 
confronted which towered high as mountains and 
defied either removing or surmounting. Yet see a 
feeble few seize the very centres and hold the very 
fortresses of the devil ! as earlier disciples dared to go 
to Ephesus, centre of Diana worship — to Paphos, 
where Venus kept her shameless feasts — to Babylon 
and Rome, where vast pagan empires held their capi- 
tal and carnival ! Follow unarmed men and sensitive 
women as they tread over paths lined with human 
bones, and walk through valleys of death, to assault 
the image of a modern Moloch and overturn the 
shrine of Juggernath! Whether it be to face the 
despotic Sultan and the ruthless Turk at the Golden 
Horn, or the cruel ruler of Uganda, or the savage 
cannibals of the Pacific, or the half idiotic Patago- 
nians, — the same invincible faith and holy heroism ! 

The horrors of heathenism defy any description. 
Language is not black enough — hell itself is not equal 
to the needs of such a portraiture. Take infanti- 
cide as an example. Mrs. Williams had, at Raiatea, 
a female servant who, after conversion, gave her an 
awful glimpse of the customs that swayed all Poly- 
nesia. A mother would suffocate a new-born babe 
with a wet cloth, or with her own hands strangle it, or 

* Jeremiah xl. 12. 



350 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

bury it alive — and feel no pang of compunction ; or, 
yet more like a demon than a brute, break joint after 
joint of the fingers and toes and then of the arms 
and legs, and if such torture did not kill, finish the 
deed by choking it to death. One woman confessed 
to thus having killed five, another seven, another 
nine, and yet another, her whole family of seventeen ! 
At a school anniversary an aged chief, before whom 
six hundred children passed in review, arose under 
the force of deep feeling, and said : "I must speak ! 
O that I had known that such good was in store for 
us! my own children might have been among this 
happy group! But I have destroyed them all — 
nineteen — and have not one left ! " Then turning to 
the king, his relative, he said, with streaming eyes: 
"You, my brother, saw me kill them one after 
another ! Why did you not stay this murderous hand ! 
and say, God is about to bless us! Salvation is 
coming to these shores! " 

The island of Raiatea, the centre for Williams's 
tours, was the seat of both the political power and 
idolatry of the group; there was the Temple of the 
Mars, and the Moloch of the South Seas. Idleness 
and iniquity, cruelty and crime, held high carnival. 
The mind was blunted by ignorance, and the con- 
science seared into insensibility. And yet even 
among such a people he was not ashamed to preach 
the gospel, and believed it would prove the power of 
God. It seemed as though association with such 
brutes would drag him down, but he brought them 
up to his level, instead of sinking to theirs. He 
taught them religion, and religion brought civiliza- 
tion, until every house seemed a house of prayer, 
and naked savages clothed and in their right minds 
sat down at Jesus' feet. No more a wilderness of 
wretched hovels, but three miles of comely cottages ; 
useful trades and mechanic arts, and a thrifty com- 
merce. Within a year seven thousand idolaters have 
flung their gods to the fires and built a great house 



RA PIDI TY OF RESUL TS. 351 

for God. And so in Samoa five-sixths of the whole 
population of sixty thousand are shortly flocking to 
him to be taught. And all this with no aid from the 
civil power ! 

And still God's signs and wonders convince not the 
unbelieving, for some would not be persuaded though 
one rose from the dead. " Critics of missions" still 
survive who can look at God's great work, and yet 
call missions either an ' ' organized hypocrisy, or a 
disastrous failure ! " Such a judgment recalls Dr. 
Johnson's verdict upon Milton's "Lycidas," that it 
is "no poem at all;" with Matthew Arnold's quiet 
rejoinder that " such a sentence is terrible — for the 
critic/" Some guns kick so badly that, as Dr. 
Beecher used to say, ' ' it ;were better to be before 
than behind them." 

We have not written to convince sceptics or 
silence critics, but to encourage believing and praying 
saints who find new food for faith and prayer in 
every new fact that proves a present and a living 
God. To such, God's signs and wonders are a daily 
inspiration ; and all missionary history becomes one 
continuous miracle. These signs have not been 
wrought "in a corner;" they are found everywhere, 
and attested by witnesses who are beyond impeach- 
ment, whether for competency or integrity, and who 
are too many in number for honest doubt to remain. 

A brilliant but erratic American once replied to an 
opponent in debate, — who sought to discredit his 
statements of fact, by saying that " of such facts 
he himself had no knowledge" — "My knowledge, 
however limited, cannot be set aside on acpount of 
another's ignorance, however extensive!" The mas- 
terly retort is but too applicable to some who with a 
superficial denial would sweep away the testimony of 
that noble band of witnesses who, from Carey to 
Mackay, and over a field that reaches from Japan to 
Liberia, and from Greenland to Tierra del Fuego, 
attest gospel conquests. 



VIII. 

ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 

As might be anticipated, this century of missions 
bears no mark of the wonder-work of God more con- 
spicuous than the multiplied and marvellous answers 
to prayer. 

Every conspicuous step and stage of progress is 
directly traceable to prevailing, believing, expectant 
supplication. When Jonathan Edwards blew his 
trumpet blast, calling all believers to united prayer 
for a new and world-wide Pentecost, Northampton 
in England echoed the clarion peal of the New 
England Northampton, and the monthly concert of 
prayer, established thirty-seven years later, was the 
beginning of a stated monthly season of such 
united, organized pleading with God for a lost 
world. 

Carey was the Moses and Joshua of the new move- 
ment, both in one; and nothing marked him so con- 
spicuously as the rod of God in his hand — the power 
of humble, believing supplication. Had Carey not 
known how to pray, the missionary century had not 
yet dawned, or had waited for some other praying 
soul to roll back the curtain of the long night. God 
has compelled his saints to seek Him at the throne 
of grace, so that every new advance might be so 
plainly due to His power that even the unbeliever 
might bg constrained to confess : " Surely this is the 
finger of God!" 

He meant that the century of missions should be 
to the Church at home as important as to the distant 
fields of missions abroad; and, in fact, the heart 
must have a strong pulse if the life currents of blood 
are to be driven to the fingers' ends. And so no 
age, since the Apostolic, has been so peculiar for the 



ANSWERS TO PR A YER. 353 

revival of prayer. Every new Pentecost has had its 
preparatory period of supplication — of waiting for 
enduement ; and sometimes the time of tarrying has 
been lengthened from "ten days" to as many weeks, 
months, or even years ; but never has there been an 
outpouring of the Divine Spirit from God without a 
previous outpouring of the human spirit toward 
God. To vindicate this statement would require us 
to trace the whole history of missions, for the field 
of such display of divine power covers the ages. 
Yet every missionary biography, from those of Eliot 
and Edwards, Brainerd and Carey, down to Living- 
stone and Burns, Hudson Taylor and John E. 
Clough, tells the same story : prayer has been the 
preparation for every new triumph, and the secret 
of all success; and so, if greater triumphs and 
successes lie before us, more fervent and faithful 
praying must be their forerunner and herald ! 

If this be so, we must fix this fact in mind by 
repetition, sound it out as with God's own trump, 
write it as in letters of light, on the very firmament 
of missions — that the New Acts of the Apostles 
opened with prevailing prayer, and in each new 
chapter records its new triumphs. 

About the middle of the eighteenth century the 
fallow soil began to be sown with those seeds of mis- 
sionary enterprise which came to the surface a half 
century later. We repeat what has been said, that 
Carey's movements were only the germinating of what 
Edwards, and others like him, had planted. When 
in 1784, at that Northamptonshire Baptist Associa- 
tion, John Sutcliff, of Olney, reported, recommend- 
ing a stated monthly meeting to bewail the low state 
of missions, and to implore God for a general revival 
of pure piety, and a world-wide outpouring of power 
from on high, the first Monday of each month was 
the time designated, and John Ryland, Jr., drew up 
the plan. Soon after, Sutcliff republished Edward's 
appeal, thus acknowledging that this new advance 



354 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

was the result of seed sown as early as 1747, and 
wholly due to prayer, which was now formally recog- 
nized as the one hope alike of the Church and the 
world. 

Three years later, Carey was ordained at Moulton, 
and five years after that came the compact at Ketter- 
ing, which was the Magna Charta of modern mis- 
sions ; and the Baptist Missionary Society was born, 
now mother of so large a family of societies. That 
small but famous "fund" of thirteen pounds and 
one half-crown, laid by that little band of twelve on 
the altar that so sanctified and magnified the gift, 
was, by God's decree, the small offering it was, and 
from His poor, because He meant to show that it was 
not - by might or by power, not by numbers or by 
wealth, but by His Spirit, that this work is to be car- 
ried on. 

Those who, like Sydney Smith, sneered at the 
" consecrated cobblers " and "apostates" from the 
humblest callings of life, who with a hundred half- 
crowns would attempt world-wide missions — were 
blind to the open mystery of God's dealings, who 
always chooses the base and weak and despised 
nothings to bring to naught the great and strong 
and mighty somethings ; and who deliberately 
chooses and uses the few and the poor, the lowly 
and the obscure, that the excellency of the power 
may be of God and not of man, and that no flesh 
should glory in His presence. Had that first roll of 
subscribers held twelve hundred distinguished names, 
with some prince of royal blood as patron, and had 
that sum been thirteen thousand pounds to start 
with, missions might have waited another century 
for their real beginning. 

Those who knew, and at first opposed, Carey, came 
to feel that he was a man of prayer and that the God 
of Prayer was back of him. It was prayer that found 
expression in the monthly concert, that baptized 
with power Carey's "Inquiry," that made that map 



ANSWERS TO PR A YER. 355 

at Moulton luminous with divine light and vocal with 
a world's mute appeal ; it was prayer that led to that 
sermon in Nottingham and that gathering in Widow 
Wallis' parlour at Kettering, and to Carey's offer of 
himself in 1793. 

God saw that the Church would never take up, or 
be fit to take up, this Apostolic work without a revi- 
val of Apostolic faith in divine power and in the 
prayer that alone commands that power. Reliance 
on human patronage, and the kindred confidence in 
numbers and riches, are fatal hindrances to missions. 
When Carey preached his now immortal sermon, 
whose divine quality was found in its unction, he 
said : ' ' Saviour, Thy greatest things have had small- 
est beginnings." It was to him a great encourage- 
ment that when God called Abraham he was alone. 
(Isa. 1. 1.) And this same truth of insignificant begin- 
ning was illustrated in Widow Wallis' house on 
October 2d, 1792. 

Upon this one form of signs and wonders our 
minds have need, therefore, to linger, as bees upon 
a bloom, for the nectaries of our Christian life are 
here to be found: we refer to these Answers to 
Prayer. 

God has taken infinite care to fasten in the minds 
of believers the power of supplication in the name of 
Christ to work supernatural results. In the Word 
of God there are at least ten very marked lessons on 
prayer; and these lessons are progressive — they 
advance from the simplest rudiments, in a distinct 
order or series, in which each step must be taken on 
the way to the next — each lesson learned, if the suc- 
ceeding one is to be understood. For instance, if 
we combine the gospel narratives and observe the 
development of the doctrine, we shall find that we 
are successively taught the nature of prayer as ask- 
ing of God ; then the negative and positive conditions 
of acceptable, prevailing prayer, such as a frame of 
forgiveness, of faith in God's promise, of importunate 



356 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

earnestness, of devout expectancy, of mutual agree- 
ment in the Spirit, of accordance with the will of 
God, etc. The climax of all these lessons is reached 
in that expressly new lesson taught by our Lord, as 
to asking in His Name ; that is, by virtue of our 
identity with Him. When prayer is offered in 
another's name, that other becomes the real suppliant, 
iv ho ever presents the request. And so our Lord 
teaches us that from the time when our oneness with 
Him is recognized and realized as based upon our 
membership in His body, we may ask in His name, 
by His power, in His stead; so that the petition 
becomes the petition of Him in whose name it is 
offered, as Esther's writing, when signed and sealed 
in the name of King Ahasuerus, became his decree.* 

Behold these lessons gathered up and woven into 
the fabric of one superb metaphorical representation 
in the Apocalypse. In the eighth chapter, the visions 
of the seer of Patmos open with a solemn and mys- 
terious half-hour of silence in heaven. Before the 
first of the seven trumpets sounds, the seven angels 
stand silent before God, as though waiting a signal. 
And the half-hour of silence seems wholly given to 
this revelation of the power of prayer. 

The Angel of Intercession comes and stands at the 
altar, holding in his hands a golden censer. Unto 
him is given much incense, that he should add it 
unto the prayers of all the saints upon the golden 
altar, before the throne ; and the mingled smoke of 
the incense and prayers of saints ascend like a sweet 
savour before God out of the censer. Then the 
Angel takes the censer, fills it with the fire of the 
altar, and casts it upon the earth; and astounding 
results follow — thunderpeals, lightning flashes, voices, 
and earthquake convulsions. 

This parable in action might still have remained 
an inscrutable mystery but for a divine key that is 
in the lock, which opens to us its meaning. We 

* Compare John xvi. 23-27, Esther viii. 8. 



ANSWERS TO PR A YER. 357 

are here twice told that it concerns the "prayers of 
saints." And with this key we may open the doors 
of this great truth. Laying aside the figurative 
forms of expression, which are like bronze gates, 
sculptured with allegorical figures — what readest 
thou? 

Prayers of saints, offered in holy agreement, 
ascend like vapours, which blend and mingle in pure 
white clouds. The great Intercessor at the Throne 
presents them before God, made acceptable by His 
own infinite merit, and thus they prevail. The 
power of God is put at the disposal of praying souls ; 
and upon the earth wonderful changes, convulsions, 
upheavings, revolutions take place. Prayer has gone 
to heaven, found acceptance, and returned in answers 
of almighty power, as moisture goes up in vapour and 
returns in rain. Supplication, when it is according to 
scriptural conditions, commands divine interposition. 

Here, then, we have a vision of Prayer as a power in 
the universe of God. There is a half-hour silence; no 
word is spoken. But the silence has a voice. It 
tells an unbelieving Church that whenever great 
moral and spiritual reformations and transforma- 
tions, evolutions and revolutions, are witnessed, 
somebody has been praying, though only God may 
trace the links between the prayers and the answers. 

The whole story of missions is the historic inter- 
pretation of that Apocalyptic vision: it is the story 
of answered prayer. If we would trace organized 
mission effort back not to its birth but to its concep- 
tion, we must go farther than Widow Wallis' parlour 
at Kettering, or even the cobbler's shop at Hackleton, 
or Edward's appeal in 1747. Nearly twenty years 
before that trumpet-call to prayer, another great 
movement had started at Oxford, where John and 
Charles Wesley, and Morgan and Kirkham, Ingham, 
Broughton, Hervey and George Whitefield were 
studying and praying to promote holiness and use- 
fulness. At the end of six years this little company 



358 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

numbered but sixteen. But such were some of the 
preparations God was making for the birth-hour of 
modern missions. Upon these few men at Oxford 
there came suddenly a blessing from on high, which 
not only changed the whole tenor of their lives, but 
became the mould of a revived Church and the 
matrix of modern missions. 

If the history of all that prayer has wrought, in the 
century now closing, could be written and read, it 
would be as startling as the opening of the books in 
the last great day. The number is legion, of the 
movements for human weal whose secret source, 
unknown to the people, has been in prevailing 
prayer. 

The repeal of the " Contagious Diseases " Act in 
Britain was a triumph of prayer. Against the advo- 
cates of this repeal almost the whole strength of the two 
houses of Parliament was massed, but throughout the 
kingdom disciples were giving themselves to suppli- 
cation. A few men undertook to maintain a stand 
against the whole nation, and two or three godly 
women took their stand beside them, hooted at by an 
insulting rabble and pelted by the daily press with 
merciless ridicule as the "howling sisterhood!" 
But prayer prevailed and the abhorrent measure was 
abolished by unanimous vote. 

Those who in England and America have watched 
the slow steps by which the way was prepared for 
the abolition of slavery well know that in that great 
contest between human rights and the might of 
organized selfishness and sordidness, Prayer turned 
the scale. There were some godly women, for ex- 
ample, who met at stated times in Boston to claim 
from God the freedom of the slave; and, when the 
wild waves of riot surged against the very^doors of 
their little place of prayer, they remained on their 
knees and were heard to say: " Lord, the foes of God 
and of the slave molest us indeed, but they cannot 
make u s afraid.' 1 '' And so the praying saints kept 



ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 359 

praying, until the fires of God came down and 
burned the fetters from four millions of manacled 
hands. 

That famous cartoon of the death of St. Genevieve 
depicts the triumph of Roman valour with its pomp 
and pageantry of arms, side by side with a humble 
deathbed around which praying saints are gathered. 
But it suggests how much mightier is the power that 
goes with a few supplicating believers than all the 
boasted might of armies. 

Read the New Acts of the Apostles ; linger over 
the scenes at Hilo and Tahiti, New Zealand and the 
Fiji isles; pierce to the church of the cavern in the 
Vaudois vales; follow the Huguenots in exile; study 
the personal life of Edwards and Brainerd, and Mills 
and Carey and Judson and Johnson ; track to their 
closets and retreats in the forests and caves, God's 
praying ones, and you shall know how God's Pente- 
costs are but the rewarding "openly" of those who 
have learned how to get hold on Him " in secret." 

The Church, when it is once more a praying Church, 
will boldly claim of God that He shall stretch forth 
His hand as the only way to give boldness in preach- 
ing His word. When it is God's "work" we are 
doing it is our right and privilege not only to ask, 
but to "command" Him. (Isa. xlv. n.) Faithnot 
only offers a request, but issues a fiat — and says, it 
shall be so. Prayer, says Coleridge, is 

" An affirmation and an act, 
That bids eternal truth be fact ! " 

The promise makes prayer bold, for God's word 
cannot fail. Fulfilment is as certain as past events 
are fixed, and the future becomes a present to such 
faith. There is a new era of missions yet to be 
ushered in when the disciples of Christ learn to ask 
in Jesus' name, by the power of the Holy Spirit, for 
the glory of God, and with a confidence that counts 
things that are not as though they are. 



360 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

Missionary history has exemplified that superbly 
grand lesson, that prayer, when it prevails, has about 
it a boldness, a holy audacity, which reminds us of 
the prophet whose plea was — "Do not disgrace the 
Throne of Thy Glory!" When a saint understands 
that prayer has three intercessors — the interceding 
Spirit within, the interceding suppliant, and the in- 
terceding Christ before the Throne — he feels himself 
but the channel through whom a current passes, 
whose source is the Holy Spirit in his heart, whose 
final outpour is through our great High Priest into 
the bosom of the Father; and he loses sight of him- 
self in the thought of the divine stream, and its spring 
and its ocean. How can he but be bold? Prayer 
becomes no more mere lame and timid asking — it is 
claiming and laying hold of blessing. Nay, it is wait- 
ing for and welcoming the blessing, as a returning 
stream from the heart of God, pouring back into and 
through the heart of the supplicant. While he calls, 
God answers — there is converse, intercourse, inter- 
communication : prayer is not only speaking to God, 
but hearing Him speak in return. As a Japanese 
convert said, it is like the old-fashioned well, where 
one bucket comes down while another goes up — only 
in this case it is the full bucket that descends ! Such 
prayer a true missionary has to learn, and it is such 
prayer that brings him the conscious presence 
promised by his Master, with its outcome of divine 
wisdom and strength. It is such prayer that brings 
to our aid that consummate preacher, the Holy Spirit, 
whose divine oratory convinces and persuades — who 
has the power of revelation, demonstration, illumi- 
nation — who can flash instant light into the darkest 
mind and command life to the dead. 

What gracious blessings have come to heathen 
souls in answer to prayer! The Rev. Griffith John, 
of Hankow, records a whole Saturday spent in prayer 
for a baptism of the Spirit of God. The following 
morning he preached on the subject, and at the close 



ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 361 

of the service proposed a meeting for an hour a day, 
during the ensuing week, for special anointing from 
above. From fifty to seventy of his converts met 
day by day, and mingled a confession of their sins 
with supplication for the holy outpouring. The 
impulse which the native Church then received has 
never yet spent its force. The mission in China, 
begun in 1847 by William Burns, has now increased 
until it has five separate centres, with thousands of 
converts, with native preachers and pastors and 
schools and medical missions. Its converts have 
stood firm against persecution, and the abundant 
blessing has been reverently traced to the monthly 
prayer-meeting for China held in the room at Edin- 
burgh. 

For some years the writer has been gather- 
ing and putting on record authentic and striking 
answers to prayer. A few of them, which have car- 
ried unspeakable blessing to his own heart, he 
now places on record in these pages: 

Charles G. Finney, in his " Revival Lectures " (page 
112), tells of a pious man in Western New York sick 
with consumption. He was poor, and had been sick 
for years. An unconverted merchant was very kind to 
him, and the only return he could make was to pray 
for his salvation. By-and-by, to the astonishment of 
everybody, that merchant was converted, and a great 
revival followed. This poor man lingered several 
years. After his death his widow put his diary into 
Mr. Finney's hands. From this it appeared that, being 
acquainted with about thirty ministers and churches, 
he set apart certain hours in the day and week to 
pray for each of them, and also for different mission- 
ary stations. His diary contained entries like the fol- 
lowing : ' ' To-day I have been enabled to offer what I 
call the prayer of faith for the outpouring of the 

Spirit on the Church." Thus he had gone 

over a great number of churches. Of the missionary 
stations he mentions particularly the mission at Cey- 



362 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

Ion. Not long after the dates mentioned, mighty 
revivals had commenced and swept over that region, 
nearly in the exact order of his praying ; and in due 
time news came even from Ceylon of a revival there ! 
Thus this man, too feeble in body to leave his house, 
was yet useful to the world and the Church. Stand- 
ing between God and the desolations of the Church, 
and pouring out his heart in believing prayer, as a 
prince he had power with God and prevailed. 

The following incident was related at Northfield 
by the Rev. J. Hudson Taylor: A station in the 
China Inland Mission was peculiarly blessed of God. 
Inquirers were more numerous and more easily 
turned from dumb idols to serve the living God than 
at other stations. This difference was a theme of 
conversation and wonder. After a time Mr. Taylor 
returned to England, and at a certain place was 
warmly greeted by a stranger, who showed great 
interest in his mission work. This stranger was so 
particular and intelligent in his questions concerning 
one missionary and the locality in which he laboured, 
seemed so well acquainted with his helpers, in- 
quirers, and the difficulties of that particular station, 
that Mr. Taylor's curiosity was aroused to find out 
the reason of this intimate knowledge. To his great 
satisfaction, he now learned that this stranger and 
the successful missionary had covenanted together 
as co-workers. The missionary kept his home 
brother informed of all the phases of his labour. 
He gave him the names of inquirers, stations, hope- 
ful characters and difficulties, and all these the home 
worker was wont to spread out before God in prevailing 
prayer. 

In the recently published memoir of Adolph 
Saphir,* there is put on record one of the countless 
instances of divine administration of missions, which 
we cite because of the many-sided lesson taught. 

It is the story of how the mission for the Jews was 

* Memoir Adolph Saphir, D.D., by Rev. G. Carlyle, M.A., p. 37 et seq. 



ANSWERS TO PRA YER. 363 

established in Pesth, Hungary. Prayer is the key to 
every new mystery in this series of marvels. First, 
the father of this movement was Mr. R. Wodrow, of 
Glasgow, whose private diary shows whole days of 
fasting and prayer on behalf of Israel. The next 
step was the appointment of a deputation, in 1838, 
consisting of those four remarkable men, Doctors 
Keith and Black, with Andrew Bonar and Mc- 
Cheyne, to visit lands where the Jews dwelt, and 
select fields for missions to this neglected people. 
The intolerance of the Austrian government seemed 
to shut the door to any work within its dominions, 
and so, notwithstanding the large Jewish population 
there resident, Hungary was not embraced in the 
plan of visitation. But God did not propose that 
this land should be longer passed by; and He, by 
mysterious links, joined the plan of the deputation to 
His own purposes for Hungary. 

Dr. Black slipped from his camel's back as they 
were crossing from Egypt to Palestine, and the 
seemingly trifling accident proved sufficiently serious 
to change the homeward route of Dr. Black and 
Dr. Keith, by way of the Danube. As they passed 
through Pesth, they made some inquiries as to the 
Jews there to be found, little knowing what unseen 
Hand was leading "the blind by a way that they 
knew not." 

The Archduchess Maria Dorothea, then residing 
in the Prince Palatine's palace, had some years pre- 
viously been led, by a death in her family, to seek 
solace in the Bible, where "she met Jesus." She 
was, by the imperial law, forced to bring up her 
children in the Roman Catholic Church ; but as she 
had found the truth, she taught them, with much 
prayer, the way of faith, and, in her solitude, yearned 
and besought of God that a Christian friend and 
counsellor might be sent to her. In a window of her 
boudoir, which overlooked the city with its hundred 
thousand people, day by day, for seven years, she 



364 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

had poured out her soul in prayer to God for some 
one to carry the true gospel to those around her; at 
times, in agony, stretching out imploring hands to 
God for at least one messenger of the cross to come 
to Hungary. 

The year of 1840 came, with Drs. Keith's and Black's 
providential visit to Pesth, and Dr. Keith's almost 
fatal illness there — and just at this time the arch- 
duchess was strongly and strangety impressed that a 
stranger was about to arrive who would bring a 
peculiar blessing to the Hungarians she loved. 
There was one fortnight particularly, when, night 
after night, she awoke at the same hour, with a vivid 
sense that something was about to take place which 
was to bring her relief. And when at last she heard 
that Dr. Keith was in town dangerously ill of cholera, 
she said to herself, " This is what was to happen to 
me." And from that hour her sleep was no longer 
broken. She went to the bedside of the prostrate 
stranger, and with her own hands ministered to his 
wants; and, as he became better, told him of her 
longings and prayers, acquainted him with the state 
of the Hungarian Jews, and assured him that if the 
Church of Scotland would plant a mission in Pesth, 
she would throw about it all possible guards. And 
so it came to pass that in the very field which the 
deputation purposely left out of all their scheme, 
God brought about, by link upon link of His inscru- 
table providence, the famous mission associated 
with the name of " Rabbi Duncan," and which was 
the means of giving, to the Church of Christ, Adolph 
Saphir.* 

Thus came the Protestant gospel into Buda- Pesth : 
and by what a series of divine leadings ! A man's 
prayer in Glasgow, a woman's prayer in Hungary, 
a seeming accident on desert sand, a change of route, 
an almost fatal illness, a visit of an archduchess — 
who shall dare to doubt that the Hungarian mission 

* Bonar's " Mission of Inquiry to the Jews." 



ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 365 

was a tree of God's planting ! who can wonder that 
as the first missionaries went to this new field they 
" felt wafted along by the breath of prayer, and had, 
from the very beginning, a mysterious expectation 
of success !" 

No recent development of missionary zeal is more 
startling than the sudden and rapid uprising of the 
educated young men on both sides of the Atlantic, to 
which has been given the title of the ' ' Modern 
Crusade." 

From the inception of this movement, as having been 
strangely interlinked with it, the writer can testify 
that, from first to last, its sole secret is prayer. 
More than twenty-five years ago, a missionary, after 
seventeen years of work on the foreign field, lay on 
his deathbed. Suddenly arousing himself, with great 
emphasis, he said : "I have a testimony to give, and 
would best give it now. Tell the Christian young 
men in America that the responsibility of saving the 
world rests on them ; not on the old men, but on the 
young. It is past time for holding back and waiting 
for providences. I used to think that a missionary 
ought to husband his strength ; but this is a crisis in 
the world's history, and one man by keeping back 
may keep back others. Reason is profitable to di- 
rect, but the man that rushes to duty is faithful. 
There are times when rashness is the rule and cau- 
tion the exception. I look upon the Church as a 
military company: an army of conquest, not of occu- 
pation." 

Whatever may be thought of this advice, one 
thing is plain: the heart of a dying missionary is 
singularly on fire with a passionate zeal for souls; 
and the dying eyes become gifted with the vision of 
a seer, who beholds the greatness of the crisis, and 
would trumpet forth a blast, calling young men to 
the duty of the hour. 

While that dying missionary was leaving behind 
his last legacy in a message to young men, there was 



366 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

at Princeton, New Jersey, another missionary, re- 
turned after thirty years' service in India, who was 
gathering in his own house, from time to time, a few 
younger brethren, to urge on them the same deep 
conviction — that on them God had laid the burden of 
beginning a new missionary crusade. He put before 
them the map of the world, pressed the need of an 
organized movement among young men to enter the 
regions beyond; and, while he left them to consider 
and confer, he withdrew into a neighbouring room 
to pray. To those prayers we may trace a move- 
ment so mighty that already it enrolls on its mission- 
ary covenant more than eight thousand young men 
and women and twice as many in the mighty current 
of its influence. 

In 1886, at Mt. Hermon, Massachusetts, a few 
hundred students met, at Mr. Moody's invitation, for 
a few weeks of Bible study and prayer. While there 
the young men, whose hearts had begun to burn at 
Princeton, sought to kindle fires on other altars ; and 
the number who chose the foreign field rose from 
twenty-three to a hundred. Then, after much 
prayer, a tour of the colleges was undertaken, that 
two of their number might bring the facts of the 
world's need to the minds of fellow-students not 
represented at that gathering. And now, both in 
Britain and America, the universities and colleges and 
theological schools are becoming fountains of missions. 
And the end is not yet — the movement grows rather 
than loses in volume and momentum, and it looks 
like one of the great developments of the latter 
days.* 

Prayer — Coincidences. 

There are remarkable coincidences in missionary 
history which show a divine hand, as surely as the 
release of Peter at the very hour when disciples were 

* The second " Student Volunteers' Convention," held in Detroit, Michigan, in 
February, 1894, had the largest body of accredited delegates, ever gathered in any 
missionary conference. 



ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 367 

met at the house of Mary, mother of Mark, praying 
for him. Let one or two examples suffice to prove 
and to illustrate this. 

At the precise time in missions to Tahiti, when the 
labours of fourteen years seemed wholly in vain — ■ 
when the tireless toil, faithful witness and unsparing 
self-denial of the early missionaries seemed like 
blows of a feather against a wall of adamant — when 
as yet not a single convert had rewarded all 
this long labour, and abominable idolatry and desola- 
ting warfare seemed to reign — one of the clearest 
signs and greatest wonders of God's power was seen 
in the South Seas. The directors of the London 
Missionary Society seriously proposed abandoning 
this fruitless field. But there were a few who felt 
that this was the very hour when God was about to 
rebuke unbelief and reward faith in His promise and 
fidelity to duty. Dr. Haweis backed up his solemn 
remonstrance against the withdrawal of missionaries 
from the field by another donation of two hundred 
pounds; and Matthew Wilks, the pastor of John 
Williams, said: " I will sell my clothes from my 
back rather than give up this work." And, instead 
of abandoning the mission, it was urged that a special 
season of united prayer be appointed that the Lord 
of the Harvest would give fruit from this long seed- 
sowing. The proposal prevailed ; letters of hope and 
encouragement were sent to the disheartened toilers 
at Tahiti ; and the friends of missions, confessing the 
unbelief that had made God's mighty works im- 
possible, implored God to make bare His arm. 

Now mark the coincidence. Two vessels started, un- 
known to each other, from opposite ports — one from 
Tahiti bound for London, the other from the Thames 
bound for Tahiti, and crossed each other's track in 
mid-ocean. That from the South Seas bore the let- 
ters from the missionaries, announcing a work of God 
so mighty that idolatry was entirely overthrown; 
and the same ship bore also the very idols which a 



368 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

converted people had surrendered to the missionaries. 
That other vessel from London carried to the mis- 
sionaries the letters of encouragement that bade them 
hold on to God and gave pledges of increased prayer- 
fulness and more earnest support. Here was not 
only an answer to prayer, of the most wonderful sort, 
but the promise was literally fulfilled: " Before they 
call I will answer ; and while they are yet speaking I 
will hear." 

The great outpouring at Ongole is another proof 
of a prayer-answering God. In 1853, at Albany, New 
York, the American Baptist Missionary Union was 
considering whether the fruitless field among the 
Telugus should not be given up. Here, again, a few 
of God's prophets foresaw that if faith could but tri- 
umph in this dark hour, a great harvest might yet 
come even to this desert of Southern India. And the 
" Lone Star " mission was not abandoned but rein- 
forced ; and Dr. S. F. Smith ventured, in a singularly 
prophetic poem, to predict that the time would come 
when that Lone Star would outshine all other mis- 
sions. A bolder prophecy was never uttered by any 
uninspired seer. Twenty-five years passed by and 
then God sent a famine among that people, and the 
promised blessing seemed farther off than ever. 

In fact, that famine was, like John the Baptist, a 
forerunner that prepared the way of the Lord. Dr. 
Clough had in the interval joined the faithful Jewett 
— and, being a civil engineer by training, he under- 
took to complete the Buckingham canal, in order to 
get work and wages for starving thousands. These 
great gatherings of gangs of workmen gave oppor- 
tunity for the simple telling of the gospel story. 
The great text, John iii. 16, was again, as at Tahiti, 
sixty-three years before, the " Little Gospel" from 
which God's love was made known; and, in that 
very field which had been so nearly abandoned as 
both fruitless and hopeless, God gave the largest 
and longest succession of harvests ever yet known 



ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 369 

to the missions of the Christian Church. These 
two examples are enough to prove to any candid 
mind that God is still working signs in answer to 
prayer. 

And, let it be added, that, twelve years before this 
grand effusion of the Spirit, and when the prospect 
was darkest, a humble missionary, with his wife and 
three converted natives, on the first day of the year, 
climbed the high hill overlooking Ongole, and there, 
looking down on that large town and fifty surround- 
ing villages sunk in idol worship, knelt, and each in 
turn asked of God that He would send a missionary 
there, and make that centre of heathenism a centre 
of gospel light. For twelve years God delayed the 
answer, and then the blessing came, just where it 
had been besought, only far more abundantly than 
it had been expected, and it has not yet ceased. In 
1869, when there were as yet but 143 members, 
special prayer was made for an addition that year of 
500 converts, and 573 were baptized; and in some 
twelve years more the Church numbered 2,000. Now 
it is the largest in the world ! 

In 1872, in December, the Church Missionary 
Society appointed a day for intercession, with special 
reference to the increase of missionary force — and 
that day was spent in prayer offered distinctly and 
definitely for more men. It was immediately fol- 
lowed by offers of service beyond any other period 
of the Society's history. In the five years follow- 
ing it sent out 112 men, whereas, in the preceding 
five, it had sent but 51. 

In 1880, this same noble society called for very 
special intercession for more money — as eight years 
before, for more men. Within a few months, 
;£ 1 3 5, 000 were offered to wipe off all deficit, 
and ^150,000 more, specially contributed for exten- 
sion, as well as other special gifts whereby substan- 
tial advance was made upon the ordinary income. 
Again, in 1884, men were sorely needed, and it was 



370 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

asked of God that the very flowers of society might 
be transplanted to heathen climes. A day was ap- 
pointed to pray for this result. The previous evening 
Secretary Wigram was summoned to Cambridge to 
1 ' see a number of graduates and undergraduates who 
desired to dedicate themselves to the Lord's work 
abroad." More than one hundred university men 
met him, and the next day he went back to the 
prayer-meeting to illustrate to his colleagues the old 
promise : ' ' Before the}' call I will answer ; and 
while they are yet speaking I will hear." 

The Two Legions. 

Ancient tradition has handed down two most inter- 
esting relics about the devout soldiers of the Roman 
army. The story of the Theban Legion, in the third 
century, may be coloured by fancy, but has, doubtless, 
a foundation of fact. Twice, it is said, they were 
decimated by the Emperor Maximian because they 
would not obey, when ordered to march against their 
fellow-Christians in Gaul. But no threats nor ex- 
ecutions could turn the fixed hearts of the legion. 
The survivors still held their ground after their 
fellows had been slain; and Maurice, their leader, 
respectfully but firmly declared to the Emperor, in 
behalf of his fellow-soldiers, that, whilst ready to 
yield implicit obedience in all matters consistent 
with conscience, death was preferable to the violation 
of duty to God. And when the Emperor ordered 
his soldiers to destroy the whole band, they quietly 
laid down their arms and accepted martyrdom. 

The other story is that of the Thundering Legion 
under Marcus Aurelius. When the Roman hosts 
were surrounded by barbarian hordes, and the peril 
was great, these Christian soldiers, mighty in prayer, 
knelt on the very battle-field and sought from God 
and obtained deliverance by His hand from the 
dangers that threatened the forces of the empire. 

Whether there ever was a Theban Legion and a 






ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 371 

Thundering Legion in the days of the Silver Eagle 
matters little; but the Missionary Army has had 
both from the beginning. Men and women who 
would not be drawn or driven from their duty to 
Christ and lost souls, though the fever, the famine, 
the sword decimated their ranks, have dared the 
prison cell, starvation, persecution and death itself 
rather than abandon their witness to Christ. And 
the strength of missions has ever been that the 
Captain of our salvation has always had His Praying 
Legion; who in the crises of the conflict, took no 
account of the number or might of foes, but pre- 
vailed with God in prayer. It is the central glory of 
missionary history that it has produced more intrepid 
and self-sacrificing soldiers of the cross, and more 
great intercessors like Moses, Samuel, Daniel and 
Elijah, than any other form even of Church life. 
Surely between these facts there must be some 
divine link of connection. A work that develops 
such courage and constancy, on the one side, and 
such faith and prayer, on the other, must, in this 
very fact, bear the peculiar stamp and seal of the 
King himself. 

Thus, by "many infallible proofs," missionary 
history vindicates its rightful claim as a continuation 
of the Acts of the Apostles, in the signs and wonders 
God has wrought. And what shall I more say? 
for the time would fail me to tell of all the marvels 
of Providence and Grace which make the whole 
growth of modern missions a Burning Bush aflame 
with the glory of the presence of God ! 

On the long guns of the African Moors these words 
are often found engraven: " For the Holy War if God 
will." When will disciples learn that they are God's 
soldiers, and that every power and faculty is to be 
devoted as a weapon to His holy warfare? What 
new signs and wonders would be wrought if, in re- 
sponse to the bugle blast of our great Captain, the 
whole Church would march to the battle-field ! All 



372 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

that God has yet shown of His mighty power would 
be but a small part of His ways. Men would begin 
to see Omnipotence baring its resistless arm, and 
the thunder of His power would shake earth and 
heaven ! 






Part VI. 
THE NEW MOTIVES AND INCENTIVES 



THE LOOK FORWARD. 

It was a saying of Immanuel Kant that every man 
should propose to himself three questions: What 
can I know ? What ought I to do ? and for what 
may I hope ? 

Motive is that which moves, or produces motion. 
All action is the result of incentives; and the more 
numerous and powerful the inducements, the more 
prompt and energetic the activity. Hope is, there- 
fore, the greatest motor of human life ; it is the very 
sculptor of character and conduct; the architect of 
history and destiny. Hope is so connected with hap- 
piness that its perfect crown is heaven ; and Dante 
was not less philosopher than poet when he wrote 
over the gates of the Inferno, ' ' Abandon hope, all 
ye who enter here ! " 

The matter now claiming attention belongs at the 
conclusion of our studies, for it is the apex which, 
naturally and fitly, forms that culmination. 

To tarry, at any point of progress, simply to dwell 
on past successes, is the forfeiture of further advance. 
The backward glance is helpful only when the retro- 
spect enables us to apprehend the aspect and appre- 
ciate the prospect; when memory inspires and ener- 
gizes hope ; when the review acts not as a sedative 
and a narcotic, but as a tonic and a stimulant. 

Motives and incentives cannot stimulate to action 
until their value and virtue are felt, and to be felt 
they must be appreciated. Their weight in the scale 
will depend upon the attractive power they possess 
to our minds; for the scale whose beam they turn is 
the judgment. God will guide with His eye those 
who keep their eye fixed on His; but the Divine Eye 
cannot guide without this answering look. Other- 

375 



376 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

wise we must be guided by sterner restraints and 
constraints, like the beast whose mouth is held in 
with bit and bridle, leather reins in place of gentler 
glances. 

To this closing part of our great theme we may 
well approach with thoughtf ulness, for all new prog- 
ress in missions finds here the hiding of its power. 
If the new century, now beginning, is to write new 
and grander chapters in the Acts of the Apostles we 
must feel the force of the mighty motives which God 
puts before us. He means that the hundred years 
ahead shall be as much more abundant in effort, intel- 
ligent in zeal, and glorious in achievement, as the 
century which began with Carey's sermon at Not- 
tingham surpassed that which went before it. And 
so countless are the new motives and incentives now 
yoked to missionary effort, that if they move and 
draw us as they should, our advance will be not by 
an arithmetical but a geometrical ratio, and the 
world's evangelization will go forward not by slow 
steps but by gigantic strides. 



II. 

A NEW ORDER OF THINGS. 

First of all, a new order of things has been di- 
vinely created for our encouragement. So novel 
are the conditions of missionary labour that nothing 
seems old and unchanged but the gospel message 
and the converting Spirit. Instead of a world locked 
against us, with walls to be broken down and gates 
to be forced, an open highway to the heart of Asia 
and Africa; in most parts a welcome; in almost all, 
an undisputed entrance. Instead of the barriers of 
a century ago, — obstacles between the Church and 
the heathen world, which hindered approach and 
access, intercourse and impression; and obstacles 
within the Church itself, which hindered action and 
co-operation, — an aroused Church, in sympathy with 
the work of missions, confronting a world-wide field, 
everywhere inviting the sower with his seed, and in 
many parts presenting a harvest calling for the 
reaper with his sickle. 

It has been reserved for the nineteenth century to 
behold the whole world open to the missionary. God 
has flung wide the gates of India, broken down the 
wall of China, unsealed the ports of Japan; Africa 
is girdled and crossed, Turkey and Siam, Burma and 
Corea, invite missionary labour, and France and 
Spain, Italy and Mexico, welcome an open Bible and 
a simple gospel. These long-locked doors God has 
curiously opened with the keys of commerce and 
common schools, the printing-press and medical sci- 
ence, as well as arms and diplomacy. In some 
cases, still more strangely, He has used His " great 
army " of locusts, caterpillars and cankerworms, 
famine and fever, drought and flood, to force en- 
trance into Satan's strongholds. What inspiration 

377 



378 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

to holy activity and zeal, when His shining Pillar 
moves before us to assure of victory through His 
presence and power ! Moreover, our work may now 
be done, in almost every land, with comparative 
immunity from danger. M. Schoffler, missionary to 
Cochin China, was publicly executed at Sontay by 
order of the grand mandarin, for his preaching of 
Christ, contrary to the laws of the land, on May 4th, 
185 1. This was the last such execution in the 
Flowery Kingdom, and from it dates the new era in 
Chinese evangelization. Resistance we shall proba- 
bly continue to meet everywhere, but the more vio- 
lent, the less likely to be prolonged. 

There are three stages of missionary work : First, 
the pioneer period, when as yet the missionary is 
met with such distrust and suspicion, that little 
headway can be made; secondly, the period of 
action, when early obstacles have been removed or 
surmounted, opposition is overcome, and the cross is 
actually planted, and converts are multiplying; and, 
last of all, the period of establishment, when native 
churches become self-governing, self-supporting, 
self-propagating. During the first stage it is vain 
to send many missionaries to the field; during the 
third, they may be withdrawn as no longer needed ; 
but during the second they should be especially mul- 
tiplied; the opportunity is grand but brief, and 
must be promptly improved; and, in most fields, we 
have actually reached this middle period, when the 
need of men and money is most imperative. 

Is it no significant sign of the will of God that just 
at this time of peculiar crisis, such increased capacity 
should exist in the Church to meet this greatly in- 
creased demand? Fewness of numbers and small- 
ness of means the Christian Church can no longer 
offer as an excuse or extenuation for inaction. 

To-day the evangelical Protestant Churches have 
a membership of nearly forty millions of communi- 
cants. One from every hundred, which is a smaller 



A NE W ORDER OF THINGS. 379 

proportion than the small community at Herrnhut 
actually is sending out — would give us a missionary 
army of about four hundred thousand — fifty times 
the present available force. As to money, wealth is 
in the hands of this vast membership to an extent 
perilous to piety. From careful estimates, the aver- 
age income of Protestant Church members, the 
world over, is reckoned at not less than one hundred 
pounds annually — a low estimate, considering what 
hoards of treasure are in the coffers of so many ; and 
yet this yields a sum total of four thousand millions 
of pounds sterling, or about twenty thousand mil- 
lions of dollars — a sum too immense for us to con- 
ceive. 

If of this, a tithe were given, there would pour 
annually into missionary treasuries four hundred 
millions of pounds, or two hundred times the 
amount now given to missions. And imagination 
fails to paint the grandeur and glory of mission con- 
quests, with a consecrated Church sending nearly 
half a million men and women into the world field, 
and furnishing an annual income approaching five 
hundred million pounds to sustain them in the com- 
bat with idolatry and iniquity ! 

The gifts that idol worshippers lavish upon the 
fanes and shrines of false gods, put to shame the wor- 
shippers of Jehovah. The " Peacock Throne" of 
the Great Mogul, in the Hall of Audience at Delhi, 
cost more than two and a half millions of pounds 
sterling — or twice as much as missions in India 
since Carey went to Calcutta ! And the cost of the 
new twin temples of Hon-gwan-ji, in the ancient city 
of Kyoto, Japan, will be as much more. The 
"Eastern" and "Western" structures belonging to 
this Japanese fane are superb in expenditure. The 
latest built of them is erected entirely from free- 
will offerings of Buddhists; precious woods, metals, 
money and jewels were given without stint; and the 
offerings of human hair remind us of the maidens 



380 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

of Carthage and Tyre, who furnished from their 
ringlets the bowstrings and cordage for archers and 
war-ships. On one of the platforms could have been 
seen twenty-four heavy coils of rope, from three to 
four inches diameter, attached to which was the 
inscription : 

' ' Since the thirteenth year of Meiji (1880), when 
the rebuilding of the two halls of the Eastern Hon- 
gwan-ji was begun, the faithful laymen and lay- 
women of every place have been unanimous in pre- 
senting to the principal temple, Hon-gwan-ji, strong 
ropes wrought of their own hair, to be used in the 
work of re-erection. The number of these ropes 
reached fifty-three, twenty-nine of which became 
worthless from use. The total length of the remain- 
ing twenty-four is 4,528 feet, and the total weight, 
11,567 pounds!" 

Beside these ropes lay several large coils of hair — 
several of them gray, the gifts of the aged — which 
came too late for use, but not too late to express 
devotion. 

One feature of this new order of things is found in 
the changed relations of so-called CJiristian nations 
to the rest of the world. God has not only opened 
doors of entrance to all other peoples, and supplied 
avenues and facilities for this world-wide occupation ; 
but He has given to the great Protestant peoples of 
the earth the sceptre of the race. To Great Britain, 
the United States, Prussia, belongs the undoubted 
supremacy of the world; for, to the nations most 
deserving to be called enlightened Christian, the rest 
of mankind tacitly yield homage. Mohammedanism 
most stubbornly resists the approach of the gospel ; 
yet Dr. Schreiber, of Barmen, says, of 175,000,000 
Moslems, that 100,000,000 are already in subjection 
to Christian powers, and that before long the other 
75,000,000 will be. The political downfall of the 
False Prophet is thus already an accomplished fact. 

The great prominence of missionary literature sup- 



A NEW ORDER OF THINGS. 381 

plies another new incentive. When Christ gave his 
last command, there was not one Christian book — 
even the first gospel narrative was not yet written. 
The Church, for nearly a century, had no literature, 
and had to wait fifteen centuries for a printing-press ; 
and for three centuries more, for any missionary 
literature outside of the Acts of the Apostles. Some 
who are yet living can remember when the " Evan- 
gelical Magazine" promised its readers a page of 
missionary intelligence, "as soon as enough matter 
could be found to fill a page." To-day missionary 
hymns are in our hymn-books, missionary magazines 
and reviews throng our mails; and about one-seventh 
of our religious publications deal either directly or 
indirectly with missions ; and even our secular dailies 
devote columns and pages to the subject ! We have 
chairs of missions in our colleges and theological 
schools, and missionary lectureships. There are 
some three hundred societies organized for promot- 
ing missions, and as many translations of the Bible 
into the languages and dialects of the peoples whom 
we need to reach with the message. 



III. 

MEDICAL MISSIONS. 

What new conditions of success are found in the 
recent development of medical missions! In the 
Acts of the Apostles, two great aids were granted 
to the witnessing Church : first, the gift of tongues, 
which fitted the heralds to reach strange peoples 
without the slow mastery of a foreign speech; and, 
secondly, the gift of healing, which made even op- 
ponents favourably disposed toward the herald who 
first brought such help to the body. In a natural 
way, the lack of these supernatural gifts is now com- 
pensated. Christian scholarship has so far outrun 
the best learning and training of those earlier days, 
that grammars and dictionaries of all the leading 
languages and dialects can be supplied to the stu- 
dent; Morrison could study Chinese in London and 
Schwartz could learn Tamil at Halle, and Keith 
Falconer, Arabic at Cambridge — before China, India 
or Arabia were reached. 

Within the hundred years past, at least one hun- 
dred tongues that had before no literature, not even 
an alphabet, have by missionaries been reduced to 
writing. And the Word of God, in over three hun- 
dred dialects, now, like a perpetual Pentecost, speaks 
to the nations, so that each man may in his own 
tongue read the wonderful works of God. This re- 
duction of the world's languages to a written form, 
to a scientific form, is God's modern gift of 
tongues. 

And the medical mission, now finding entrance 
into all fields, and itself having, in many, as at Corea, 
held the key that unlocked the doors of entrance — 
what is this but God's modern gift of healing, which 
is to go before the gospel to dispose men by the help 



MEDICAL MISSIONS. 383 

given their bodies to hear the words which, to all the 
woes and wants of sinsick souls, bring health ! 

Medical missions have great capacity of service, 
both as a means, and as an end. As an end they dis- 
place existing systems of so-called medicine, posi- 
tively useless to reach disease, and positively harmful 
and cruel to patients. How Christian medical science 
relieves bodily suffering is shown by such work as 
that of Dr. Grant in Persia, Dr. Kerr in China, Dr. 
Post in Syria, and scores of other most successful 
medical missionaries. No more wonderful story has 
been written in modern days than that of the St. 
John's Hospital at Beirut, as given to the World's 
Conference in 1888. But medical missions are also a 
means to a higher end. They are destructive of 
superstition and idolatry, for false faiths are so bound 
up with false science, that to attack one is to attack 
the other, and they must go down together. The 
ignorant devotee who finds that his medicine men 
and conjurors have only been adding to his pains and 
sufferings, and that the Christian doctor both brings 
help and cure, naturally feels drawn to the new faith 
he teaches; and so medical missions are not only 
destructive of superstition and false religion, but they 
are constructive of a new faith and life. God is now 
singularly using this new agency both as a handmaid 
to the gospel and as a power to unbar long shut gates 
to the ambassador of Christ. The healing art is 
still the preparation for conversion to the great 
Healer. 

The sudden emphasis, so singularly laid on medi- 
cal missions within the last sixty years, has solved 
one of the greatest problems of missions. Of course 
there has never been a period in which preaching of 
the gospel has not been closely allied to the healing 
art. Mackay, of Uganda, was right when he said, 
that " All genuine missionary work must be in the 
highest sense a healing work." Body, soul and spirit 
have all been poisoned and diseased by sin, and 



384 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

redemption must bring salvation to the whole man. 
We cannot sever sin from sickness, and we cannot 
but feel that there is more than a link of language 
between holiness and wholeness, or health. Christ 
went about preaching the gospel of the kingdom and 
healing all manner of disease; and in commissioning 
the seventy and the twelve, healing the sick was con- 
joined with saving souls. 

Yet as a feature of missions, the medical mission is 
just sixty years old. The first regularly trained and 
designated medical missionary was Dr. Peter Parker, 
who, in 1834, went to Canton, under commission of 
the American Board ; followed shortly after by Ben- 
jamin Hobson, sent out by the London Society to 
Macao. 

Dr. Christlieb has called attention to the fact that 
it was an English physician, Gabriel Boughton, 
M.D., who really laid in the East the foundations of 
British civilization and dominion nearly 260 years 
ago. In 1636, a princess of the great Mogul's court 
was badly burned, and he was the means of her cure. 
Whereupon, in his magnanimity declining all personal 
compensation, he asked as his reward only that his 
countrymen might have leave to trade with the great 
Indian Empire. And so the healing art spoke the 
magic word which caused the iron doors to swing 
open. Was not Dr. Otis R. Bacheler, sent out to 
Orissa by the Free Baptists, also one of the first mis- 
sionary physicians ? 

The Medical Missionary Society of Edinburgh 
multiplied its income more than fourfold in the 
ten years from 1871 to 1881. Before 1861, the 
number of missionary physicians in all heathen 
lands did not exceed twenty; and ten years later, 
not over double that number. Seven years after, 
the number closely approached one hundred; and 
in another seven years, there were nearly two 
hundred regularly qualified medical missionaries; 
by this time, ten years later, that number has again 



MEDICAL MISSIONS. 385 

about doubled. And yet, how inadequate! New- 
York City alone has 3,000 doctors, or one to about 
five hundred people: the unevangelized world has 
about one to every three millions ! * 

* It may be well, in order to make these statements and statistics, so far as 
practicable, complete up to date, to add, that the British missionary societies, in 
1893, reported 139 fully qualified physicians engaged in mission work, of whom 13 
were women. The Medical Missionary Record of New York, after gathering with 
great care a list of all medical missionaries in the world, gave in 1893, the following 
as facts : 

There were in the entire world field, up to 1893, 359 fully qualified medical mis- 
sionaries, of whom 74 were women. 

Presbyterian Church, U. S., has - - - - - 48 

A. B. C. F. M., - - - - - - - 32 

Methodist Church - - - - - - "3° 

C. M. S., - - - - - - - - 25 

Free Church of Scotland, - - - - - - 20 

United Presbyterian Church, ----- 10 

Church of Scotland, ------- 8 

Presbyterian Church, Canada, ----- 8 

This list apportions to the U. S., - - - - - 173 

" " to Great Britain, - - 169 

" " to Canada, - - - - - 7 

" " to Germany, ----- 3 

As to Countries, China has ------ 126 

" " India, ------ 76 

" " Africa, ------ 46 



IV. 
THE NEW ACTIVITY OF WOMAN. 

Woman's present prominence in Christian work 
provides a new incentive of immense value and 
power. The progress of Christianity has made in 
woman's estate a complete inversion. Once, by a 
strange perversion of God's creative word, she was 
accounted a helpmeet for man — not his correspond- 
ent or counterpart, as the original implies, but his sub- 
ordinate and servant, or, at best, his helper — that is, 
man, the superior and sovereign; woman, the subject 
and servant. And so, even in the Jewish body of 
believers, woman scarcely ever comes to the front. 
Miriam, Deborah, Anna the prophetess, are the rare 
exceptions , in Hebrew history, in which woman is 
submerged and out of sight. With a curious signifi- 
cance Paul writes: " Help those women which 
laboured with me in the gospel," as though they were 
now leaders in holy service, and men must come to 
their help. Through Christ and His gospel she who 
was first in transgression, is becoming first in holy 
consecration and missionary devotion ; in the family, 
the radiant centre of attraction; in the Church, the 
disseminator of missionary intelligence, the kindler 
of enthusiasm, the organizer of systematic benevo- 
lence. Woman goes abroad as teacher, nurse and 
medical missionary, and in endurance and endeavour 
rivals the most patient and valiant; or, as wife and 
mother, shows what Christ makes of her sex; and 
not only joins her husband in work, but sometimes 
equals and even outdoes him in service. One-third 
of the unevangelized can best be reached by woman, 
and a large part of them can be reached by her only, 
as they are inaccessible to man. 

Medical missions afford a new field for the sister- 



THE NEW ACTIVITY OF WOMAN. 387 

hood of Christ. From the reach of this noble auxili- 
ary to missions, the women of the Orient, and especi- 
ally of India, were long shut out by the rigid laws of 
the zenana, the seraglio and the harem. Even 
heathen doctors had to them no access. In Syria a 
physician was called to prescribe for a favourite wife 
of a dignitary, but was not allowed even to see her 
tongue or feel her pulse; and when he insisted that 
no medical aid could be given without such examina- 
tion, a female slave was made to thrust out her tongue 
and reach out her hand through a rent in the curtain, 
that he might examine his patient by proxy. And 
so, as late as 1878, Mrs. Weitbrecht wrote: "All 
Hindu women are, in time of sickness, utterly neg- 
lected. Prejudice and usage banish medical help." 
And hence, fever, ophthalmia and other contagious 
ills bred their awful progeny unchecked among 
women and children. 

But now, what a change ! All India clamours for 
capable women who are trained nurses and qualified 
physicians. The Presbyterian Female Hospital at 
Lucknow, opened ten or eleven years since, had 
thirteen patients the first year; but three years later, 
212, beside 2,712 outside patients and 6,930 distribu- 
tions of medicine. The movement has ceased to be 
provincial and become national; the work at Luck- 
now and Lodiana, Travancore and Amritstar, is ex- 
tending over the great empire. 

Five years ago, the medical missions of China 
were scarcely less numerous than in India, extend- 
ing from Hong Kong and Canton to Peking, and 
even into Manchuria and Tartary and Formosa. 
The whole force then at work, male and female, was 
upwards of eighty. The hospital at Swatow, opened 
by Dr. Gauld in 1863, had in 1888 two hundred in- 
mates, treating six thousand patients a year. 

It is a strange fact that the law of sex runs 
through all Christian work. The feminine element 
is needed as well as the masculine. Man may be 



THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 



aggressive, bold, strong, fitted to pioneer, organize, 
administer; but woman is patient, impressive, ten- 
der, sympathetic, fitted to win, to soothe, to com- 
fort, to minister. Both together bring to the work 
the complete furnishing that leaves no element of 
adaptation lacking. And hence, when less than fifty 
years ago women began to organize work among them- 
selves, gather money, scatter information, send out 
women and undertake their support, qualify for 
medical missionaries, and educate their own sex for 
intelligent co-operation in securing the spread of the 
good news, the effect was felt from the centre to the 
circumference of the whole sphere of Christian 
service. And the end is not yet ! 



NEW LESSONS FROM EXPERIENCE. 

The modern age of missions furnishes new incen- 
tives in the exhibition of the relations of Christian 
missions to Christian life, which could be understood 
only when experience had both proved and illus- 
trated those relations. 

Long since, Solomon wrote : ' ' There is that scat- 
tereth and yet increaseth; and there is that with- 
holdeth more than is meet but it tendeth to poverty." 
That is one of the great truths of the wisdom from 
above, but to the worldly man it is folly. No para- 
dox Christ uttered is more inexplicable to the nat- 
ural and carnal heart than this: " He that saveth his 
life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life, for My 
sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." To 
increase by scattering, and grow poor by withhold- 
ing; to save by losing and lose by saving — is the cli- 
max of absurdity, yet it is the first principle of 
divine philosophy. Selfishness withholds and gets 
poorer by the attempt to grow richer. Benevolence 
scatters, and in imparting increases — in giving, gets. 

Missions sustain Christian life — a relation both of 
sustenance and satisfaction — they supply the one 
most complete avenue for service and for satisfying 
joy. There are returns, though they are not carnal 
nor material — the channel which conveys our gifts 
outward, conveys joy inward — like the mutual action 
of arteries and veins. Worldly pleasures are sweet 
for a season, but they lose relish and give place to 
bitter dregs at the bottom of the chalice. The 
worldly mind is a mirror turned downward, reflect- 
ing only what is earthly, sensual and sensuous, 
material and temporal. The spiritual mind is the 
mirror turned upward, reflecting heaven with its 



390 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

stars. Worldly pleasures lose charm; so shallow 
that you can look through them and see the mire at 
the bottom of the stream from which you drink; so 
hollow that, as you grasp them, you have a sense of 
their unsubstantial, unsatisfying character. Adolph 
Monod, dying at fifty-four years of age, in 1891, left 
in a brief, dying sentence, the sum of his legacy to 
his survivors: "All in Christ, by the Holy Spirit, 
for the glory of God! All else is nothing." 

The Church has found missions needful for its 
own full arousing to activity, for such work is the 
preservative of life. Nearly one-third of our exist- 
ence is passed in that sleep which for all active pur- 
poses of life is a blank, but which helps to replenish 
waste and supply energy to exhausted brain and 
brawn. But while in the physical sphere there is no 
antagonism between sleep and life, in spiritual things 
sleep is death. All activities of the vital spirit can- 
not cease without cessation of life itself, for mo- 
tionless members become atrophized ; as Dr. Solander 
said of travellers amid the snows of a Norwegian 
winter : ' ' Whoever sits down there will sleep, and 
whoever sleeps will wake no more." The sleep of 
the soul arrests spiritual circulation and respiration. 
Piety cannot survive absolute inaction. 

When missionary activities cease, ritualism and 
formalism intone their monotonous chant, and by 
their mechanical uniformity induce hopeless sluggish- 
ness and spiritual death. There is but one source of 
safety, even to disciples. Apathy brings apostasy, 
lethargy palsies and kills. To have a healthy, alive 
Church, all must be at work for souls; each, like 
Arnold of Rugby, studious to learn the evils and 
needs of his own generation and serve the whole race. 

Missions are thus inseparable from the salvation of 
the Church. The Hawaiian Islands undertook the 
mission to Micronesia to arrest decline and decay 
among native converts. The sagacious pioneers in 
Tahiti and the Fiji group encouraged the newly- 



NE W LESSONS FROM EXPERIENCE. 391 

organized churches to send labourers at once to other 
clusters about them as a means of their own de- 
velopment. And it has always been so. Not one 
of the ancient Churches survives in purity that was 
not a missionary Church ; all the rest are to-day dead. 
And if, at this time, the forty millions of Protestants 
should give up all missions and concentrate all effort 
on denominational extension and self-preservation, 
it would be the surest, quickest way to promote 
decay. Ruin would result, perhaps so rapid, that 
in a century we should have relapsed again into the 
Dark Ages. 

Daniel Webster, some years before his death, 
made an extensive tour to the extreme west of the 
United States, and on his return, expressed in four 
words his impression of the country's peril: " Abun- 
dance, Luxury, Decline, Desolation." A sagacious 
seer and prophet was this, our American Burke. He 
saw that this boasted abundance and luxury were the 
summit of a hill beyond which the descent was 
awfully rapid and dangerous. Numerical strength 
may be weakness, and wealth, impoverishment. 
What saved the Church of the seventeenth and the 
first half of the eighteenth century from the apos- 
tasy that threatened, was the birth-hour of missions 
which gave the Church a new remedy for its ills. 
And the only thing that can save the Church of the 
nineteenth century from another apostasy, will be a 
new consecration to the work of a world's evangeliza- 
tion, proportioned to our new measure of knowledge 
and opportunity. For be it remembered that fidelity 
has no fixed standard ; it varies because light has its 
degrees of clearness, and ability has its varying 
measure. What would have been faithfulness in 
Carey's day is neglect now ; what would have been 
zeal then is indifference now. As the world opens 
to us; as our numbers and resources multiply; as 
our knowledge of human need increases; as our 
facilities are indefinitely enlarged, so our readiness, 



392 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

promptness, fulness of devotion, must keep pace; 
otherwise we are unfaithful. If, when I have wealth, 
I give no larger a proportion than when poor, I really 
keep a far larger proportion for my indulgence; if, 
when I have far more incentives to duty, I am no 
more active, I am the more unimpressible and irre- 
sponsive. So, of this age to which so much more is 
given, God will require the more. 

Frenchmen have accomplished the feat of actually 
plating a dead child with a metallic shell. The 
corpse is prepared by a bath of nitrate of silver and 
the vapour of phosphorus, and then electricity is 
employed to lay on the thin shell of copper, alumin- 
ium or gold. The tendency of our day is to a 
plated Church — to leave the corruption of this world, 
and the coldness and lifelessness of a secular selfish- 
ness, within, and gild over with fashionable formal- 
ism and polite culture. To leave this tendency un- 
changed is to have, in the end, a corpse with a gold 
shell ! 

There certainly is a crisis in Church life just now 
which gives to watchful saints no little alarm. It is 
an age not only of doubt, but of declared doubt ; 
an age of scholarly inquiry, but audacious rational- 
ism and impudent irreverence; an age of unrest, 
insatiate avarice and reckless ambition; an age of 
fashionable indulgence and unrestrained selfishness ; 
an age of formality in religion and prayerlessness ; an 
age of religious extension, rather than of holy inten- 
sity; an age of secular churches and wide-spread 
neglect of the real sanctities of holy living. 

Reference has been made already to John Owen's 
" Pneumatologia," and to what he says of every age, 
"that it has its own test of fidelity or infidelity." 
Before Christ's advent, the great testing truth was 
the oneness of God's nature and His monarchy over 
all. At His advent, whether a Church was orthodox 
hung on this — whether it would receive or reject the 
Son of God as divine, incarnate, sacrificed, glorified 



NE IV LESSONS FROM EXPERIENCE. 393 

according to prophecy and promise. But, now that 
the Church has been outgathered, the test is, "how 
the Church receives the Holy Spirit;" so that a body 
of disciples who hold tenaciously to the unity of God 
and the trinity of the persons of the Godhead, and 
accept Jesus Christ as Son of God, Saviour and Lord, 
may yet in God's eyes be apostate, because practically 
rejecting the Holy Spirit in His divine offices! 

The remark is alarmingly true, and there is no 
sign of such apostasy more convincing than the ab- 
sence of that missionary spirit which is the practical 
evidence and expression of the abiding of the Spirit 
of Christ. If at once the whole Church of God should 
enter upon the work of a world's evangelization with 
a zeal proportioned to the present claims of duty and 
opportunity, there would be a sudden cessation of 
the widespread doubt, due to the leaven of German 
rationalism, under polite names of Biblical criticism ; 
we should find it once more true, as Shaftesbury 
said, that the antidote to all this scepticism and 
uncertainty is to be constantly and wholly absorbed 
in work for soul-saving. All minor questions are 
forgotten when major issues come to the front; as 
two animals that have been fighting will suddenly 
come into friendly terms, and stand side by side when 
forced to face and fight a lion. Even the Church 
is coming to embrace a great multitude who ' ' vigor- 
ously believing nothing, practice vigorously what they 
believe;" and it will be worse unless we redouble our 
fidelity to missions. 

One of the highest incentives is found in the fact 
that missions thus develop the life that makes them 
possible. There never was a true mission born un- 
less there was vitality enough to give it birth; but 
it is equally true that such child-bearing saves the 
very mother herself. The sacrifice is salvation. That 
word, Salvation, has a grander, fuller meaning than 
we often think. Justification may come to him who 
believes with the heart ; but there is a full salvation 



394 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

only to him who confesses with the mouth, and 
witnesses to the world. To escape the penalty of 
sin is but the first step in salvation; to escape the 
power of sin, and the dominion of evil is the next 
step, sanctification. But he who advances not 
further and learns that service which delivers from 
the more subtle dominion of self, knows not the 
fullest meaning of salvation. 

It ought to be motive enough that the Church's 
mission is to save the lost, and not simply to care 
for the saved. Solomon says, God hath set the 
world in man's heart — but the Hebrew term is olam 
— indefinite duration. There is a latent instinct of 
eternity in the human soul. Man knows that dura- 
tion was before him and will be after him ; and the 
believer is one in whose heart this latent instinct has 
been aroused to activity: his mission is to go forth 
and awaken that instinct in others • and that is soul- 
saving ! 



VI. 

NEW INCENTIVES TO GIVING. 

The modern notions of giving are not only far 
below the Scripture level; they contradict Bible 
standards. An article in the " Nineteenth Century " 
told men how to live on seven hundred and fifty 
pounds a year : allowance was made for all needful 
outlay on food and clothing, house rent and house 
service; and a generous provision for culture and 
amusements. But not one penny was set aside for 
charity, which was not reckoned among necessities 
or even luxuries. An advertisement appears, offer- 
ing a very large reward for a poodle, whose diamond- 
set collar was worth two hundred and fifty pounds 
sterling, and the silver chain, seven pounds more; 
but that is to be accounted among the reasonable 
indulgences, whether any provision is made for per- 
ishing millions or not ! 

The old doctrine will be unpopular in this degen- 
erate day of a secularized Church, but it is still to be 
proclaimed, for the offence of the cross is not ceased. 
No setting apart of a tithe, or Lord's portion, will, 
in these days, suffice. It never did. The tithe was 
the Jews' minimum, not maximum ; it represents what 
the poorest must give, not what the richest might 
use to buy off the right to keep the other nine-tenths ! 
Instead of asking, How little can I spare for God 
and satisfy His claim and my conscience? we should 
invert the terms, and ask, How little can I expend 
upon myself and yet satisfy my actual needs, and 
how much can I thus spare for God? 

The missionary age 'affords new opportunity and 
incentive for the culture of this supreme grace. 
Giving will bring its true blessing, its greater bless- 
ing, only when systematic and self-denying. 



396 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

"Mammon" is simply another name for money, 
when, instead of a servant, it becomes a master, 
practically served — an idol worshipped. There is no 
difficulty in understanding how what is so grossly 
material as wealth came to be associated with divine 
attributes; for, as we have seen, its power to 
achieve great results suggests omnipotence ; its 
power to represent the giver, wherever his gifts are 
bestowed and their blessings scattered, suggests 
omnipresence ; and its power to perpetuate his in- 
fluence when he is dead, suggests eternity. What a 
pity, what a crime, when such power is put in the 
fetters of selfishness, and locked up in the narrow 
cell of personal indulgence! when it achieves no 
result but to fatten and satiate the lust of greed, 
finds no sphere outside of a luxurious home, and per- 
petuates no influence but the example of the miser ! 

One of the foremost incentives to missions is found 
in the blessedness of giving. Christ spake a new 
beatitude, recorded and preserved by Paul, who said 
to the Ephesian elders : ' ' Remember the words of 
the Lord Jesus, how He said, It is more blessed to 
give than to receive ! " The full meaning and truth 
of that last beatitude is yet to be known, and can be 
known only as this work of missions is done as He 
meant it should be done. 

This may be called a new motive, for its power is 
as yet unfelt. Our giving is not only imperfect and 
inadequate, it is radically defective; for its basis is, 
in a measure, wrong and unsound. The ministry of 
money is not understood, and stewardship is practi- 
cally denied. That is a virtually effete notion, that 
all I have belongs to God ; that it is not mine to do as 
I will with it, to hoard, or spend, to use in selfish 
indulgence or bestow in unselfish ministries; but 
that it is held in trust for God, and to be put to holy 
uses, so that even what I eat and drink and wear is to 
glorify Him. This may be treated with contemptu- 
ous scorn as an antiquated doctrine, but it will never 



NEW INCENTIVES TO GIVING. 397 

be no longer binding while the word of God is our 
guide and a world waits to be saved. 

This beatitude represents the crown of all beatitudes. 
There are three stages of experience: first, where 
joy is found only in getting; second, where joy is 
found in both getting and giving ; third, where giv- 
ing is the only real joy, and getting is valued only in 
order to giving. The first shows the purely worldly 
spirit; the next indexes the average disciple; the 
last marks the closest identity with the Lord. To 
this last only the few attain or even aspire. But to such 
it is the foretaste of heaven on earth. The curse even 
of our Churches is that getting is recognized as the 
one thing to be desired and sought ; giving is at best 
recognized as a duty, not a privilege to be sought but 
an obligation to be accepted, and a thousand expedi- 
ents are adoped to evade and avoid that self-denial 
which represents the very enrichment of giving. If 
money is to be raised, instead of counting it a blessing 
to give, and to give what costs self-sacrifice, the 
constant effort is to give what costs nothing ; and resort 
is had to secular entertainments, concerts and exhibi- 
tions, tea-drinkings and picnics, bazaars and raffles, 
charades and tableaux, lantern shows and comic recita- 
tions — the whole alphabet of the world's amusements 
supplies the Church with easy expedients to gather a 
little money and escape self-denial; and modes, not 
only secular but unhallowed, are often adopted to 
secure funds for the most sacred cause of missions. 
The mistake is the more serious because it not only 
secularizes the Church, but it makes even our giving 
selfish; the cause of God must buy our support by 
some price paid to the eye, in the spectacular; to the 
ear, in the musical or the amusing; to the palate, in the 
delicate or the delicious. 

Let us stop and once more ask why and when it 
is more blessed to give than to receive. Getting 
without giving is absolutely disastrous ; even getting 
with giving is dangerous. And the only way to pre- 



398 THE NEW ACTS OF THE AFOSTLES. 

vent the disaster and avert the danger is to give, 
constantly, systematically, abundantly, cheerfully, 
self-denyingly. Fire that has no vent, has soon no 
flame ; if the name cannot get out the fire goes out. A 
spring without outlet cannot have inlet ; the water must 
give forth a stream, or it seeks a new channel under- 
ground. The Christian life is the fire of which giving 
is the vent ; it is the spring of which active benevolence 
is the stream. He who hoards and withholds, cramps 
and crushes and cripples his own better nature. 

But, as Lowell makes Christ to say, in the "Vision 
of Sir Launfal," 

" He who gives himself with his alms, feeds three : 
Himself, his hungering neighbour, and Me." 

The miser is an idolater and worships the golden 
calf. The law of all idolatry, twice thundered from 
the Psalms, is universal: 

" They that make them are like unto them. 
So is every one that trusteth in them." 

All idols make the maker and worshipper like them- 
selves. If man worships a beast he becomes beastly 
and brutal ; if it be a god of wood and stone, dumb and 
senseless like the image ; if it be a clod of earth, earthy 
like, the clod. He who worships gold — to whom the 
" almighty dollar," the "sovereign," the "Napoleon," 
is, as the names suggest, his practical monarch and 
master, becomes, as we have before hinted, a kind of 
coin himself. He gets to have a sort of metallic 
hardness and insensibility to impression, and a kind of 
metallic ring. His utterances, his preferences, his 
tastes, his actions have the sound of the brass trum- 
pet, the silver cymbal, the gold-piece. And when 
he falls in death, it is not a man who has disappeared 
from among men — not some bright star suddenly 
fading into darkness, or some musical melody sinking 
into silence, or some fruitful tree torn up by the 
roots — only a sack of hoarded treasure falling upon 
the stony pavement of fate, and, as Death cuts the knot 



NEW INCENTIVES TO GIVING. 399 

that has held its mouth closed, scattering its coins to 
be picked up by lawful heirs, or, more likely, by 
greedy lawyers ! One who worships fashion becomes 
nothing but a tailor's dummy, a walking advertise- 
ment, a suit of clothes on legs, miscalled a man ; or 
a wax-doll, trimmed with furs and feathers, and mis- 
called a woman. The worshippers of fast horses 
come to have the savour and flavour of the stall and 
the turf ; they smell of the horse ; life is to them a 
race for stakes, and their back is a saddle for 
jockeys. 

The objection commonly raised against giving to 
foreign missions — that we shall never see the money 
again — the field is too far off to make returns — is itself 
an example of how a Scripture motive may be turned 
into a hindrance. Christ bids us, do good, hoping for 
nothing again — give to those from whom we can expect 
no returns. That alone is giving. If I invite to my 
supper those whom I expect to invite me again ; or 
bestow a favour where I look for reciprocal favours, 
it is all selfish and breeds only selfishness. It is 
lending, not giving, for the loan is to be returned, 
perhaps with interest. To carry this principle into 
our benevolence makes benevolence impossible. If 
I put money into a savings bank, I have certainly 
given nothing to the bank. And if I put money into 
a Christian church or school, expecting returns in 
any form of self-gain, it may be a good investment, 
but is it true giving f 

Our whole Christian life is in danger of being 
mammonized. The little boy who slipped his penny 
into the contribution box, and asked his mother 
what sort of sweets would drop out, whether caro- 
mels or lozenges, was a good representative of older 
people, who look on all so-called benevolent schemes 
as automatic sweetmeat machines, into which you 
drop your penny, or your shilling, your dollar or 
your pound, to get sooner or later some adequate 
returns. 



400 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

Once more let it be learned by us that God's poor- 
est ones need our gifts far less than we need the disci- 
pline of giving. To say "no "to my selfish greed 
and appetite, to curb my carnal self and give reins 
to my spiritual nature, to learn to give without 
thought of any returns — simply to confer good and 
impart blessing — ah ! that is to be like unto God ! 
The devil delights in returning evil for good; man 
is quite willing to return good for good; but God's 
joy is to give the best where is returned only the 
worst! Giving is God's corrective and antidote to 
selfishness, and, because the remotest field brings the 
slowest returns, and the most destitute objects leave 
the least hope of personal gains to tempt cupidity, 
missions to the heathen furnish the grandest oppor- 
tunity we can enjoy for cultivating self-oblivion — 
pure, disinterested, unselfish, Christ-like ministry to 
want and woe. 

In one sense, this is a new incentive, for there is a 
new appeal in the changed conditions of Church life. 
The primitive Church of the Acts was a poor Church, 
so poor that the few who had possessions felt con- 
strained to dispose of their houses and lands and 
turn the proceeds into the common treasury. That 
was a simple, frugal age, in which there were no 
great monopolies and colossal fortunes as now. It 
was not, as this is, a materialistic age — when the 
very atmosphere was laden with the miasma of 
miserliness and incited to greed. We are living in 
a time when the rich are very rich and the poor very 
poor, and the gulf between them is becoming un- 
bridgeable and hopeless alienation is the outcome. 
These are days when there is far greater risk of 
Christians' becoming electro-plated with fashionable 
avarice and hardened into a respectable insensibility 
to human sorrow and suffering; when it shall be 
easy to feed and fatten upon dainties, while Lazarus 
is left to the dogs; when it shall be common to be 
comfortable in luxury while a world is dying of 



NEW INCENTIVES TO GIVING. 401 

poverty and in sin — than in any previous age. And 
hence the power of the new appeal. Because the 
very social life tends to dull our ears to human 
need, God permits the voice of the heathen's want 
and woe to be the louder and more clamorous and 
the more ceaseless. Intelligence is now so wide- 
spread that ignorance of the world's need is well- 
nigh impossible, and at least culpable; and, to know 
that a thousand millions of souls are starving for 
the bread of life, and that we can give it to them, 
and yet not to do it, implies an indifference, an 
apathy, whose crime and curse are proportioned 
to our greater information, ability and opportunity. 
In the days of the Apostles there were neither such 
chances of good, nor such risks of harm to the 
Church. 

So important is this element of unselfishness in 
giving, that to avoid or evade it is to take away its 
vital principle. It is, then, the flower without the 
colour or odour — the gem without its radiance. As 
Mr. J. A. Froude says: " Sacrifice is the first element 
in religion, and resolves itself into the love of God. 
Let the thought of self intrude, let the painter but 
pause to consider how much reward his work will 
bring to him, and the cunning will forsake his hand 
and the power of genius will be gone. Excellence 
is proportioned to the oblivion of self." No doubt 
money may be raised for missions in ways that obvi- 
ate self-sacrifice, but in proportion to our success 
is our failure — and the greater the success the worse 
the disaster. For this means that we have found a 
way to make the sacred ointment and leave out 
the perfume that, to God, gives it all its sweet 
savour. 

And hence also it is that the more we succeed in 
making large gifts from the few supply the place 
of the many small offerings of the self-denying poor, 
the less practical power is there in our very gifts 
themselves. It is one of the mysteries of chemical 



402 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

galvanism that an increase of its power cannot be 
got by increasing the dimensions of the cells of the 
battery, but can be secured only by increasing the 
number of those cells. This peculiarity illustrates 
Christian service in giving. The cumulative energy 
of our gifts depends not on their amount, but on 
the sacrifice they involve, and so, the more the givers 
in whom this sacrifice is developed, the grander the 
spiritual force and impetus given by the aggregate 
of gifts. Hence, the highest Church power hangs 
on all sharing in the giving. 

As Jeanie Deans said to the Queen: "It is not 
when we sleep soft and wake merrily ourselves that 
we think on other people's sufferings. Our hearts are 
waxed light within us then, and we are for righting 
our ain wrangs, and fighting our ain battles. But 
when the hour of trouble comes to the mind or to 
the body, and when the hour of death comes, that 
comes to high and low — long and late may it be 
yours O my leddy ! — then it is na what we hae dune 
for oursells, but what we hae dune for others, that 
we think on maist pleasantly." 

God has shown us, by nearly two millenniums of 
Church history, that missions have a vital relation to 
Christian life, and that their reflex action is so 
unspeakably precious that all the cost of money and 
men is far more than repaid in this returning tide of 
blessing. The vigorous pulsation which drives the 
blood to the ends of the body, invigorates the heart 
itself and strengthens its muscular walls. To nour- 
ish a missionary spirit is to enlarge, expand, ennoble 
our whole spiritual life. Take one example. Noth- 
ing is a greater perplexity and anxiety to true disciples 
than this — how to ensure a sanctified family life. It 
is lamentable that children of Christian parents so 
often grow up, not only strangers to God but open 
enemies and infidels. There seems to be some influ- 
ence at work to annul and neutralize all the power of 
holy example. The fact is that nothing is so subtly 



NEW INCENTIVES TO GIVING. 403 

fatal to all true symmetry of character as simple 
selfishness. There is a curious fact in botany. If 
you take out a scion from a tree, cut off the branch 
and set the scion downward, all others that grow out 
of that branch afterward, will grow downward — and 
hence, the ornamental gardener gets his drooping trees. 
The scions in our family tree get early set downward, 
and all future growths are earthward. There is as 
truly peril in a self-indulgent home as in a positively 
vicious one — let a child begin by being pampered, 
petted, indulged, taught to gratify whims and selfish 
impulses, and you have given a carnal tendency to 
the whole life. Now there is this precious fruit of 
very early training in the missionary spirit, that your 
boy or girl gets another centre of revolution outside of 
self. Others' wants and woes are thought of, and 
the penny that would be wasted on sweets, is saved 
for the missionary box. It seems a very small matter, 
but the scion gets an upward growth and all the 
future life, a tendency upward. Where mission- 
ary hymns are the lullaby sung at the cradle, and 
prayer for the heathen is taught to lisping lips at the 
mother's knee; where simple facts about the awful 
needs of pagan homes and hearts are fed to the child 
as food for the thought and tonic for self-denial, and 
the habit is thus early imparted of looking beyond 
personal comfort and pleasure, and feeling sympathy 
for lost souls — a new and strange quality is given to 
character. It is no strange thing, therefore, that in 
the homes where a true missionary atmosphere is 
habitually breathed we find children insensibly grow- 
ing up to devote themselves and their substance to 
God. 

And so in that larger family, the Church. Noth- 
ing so cripples even home work as neglect of the 
wider field. To withhold from the farthest is to 
cramp sympathy for the nearest. And so it comes 
to pass that what is often assigned as a reason or 
cause for a lack of missionary zeal and effort, is 



404 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

rather the effect of it. The Church that apologizes 
for doing nothing for missions abroad, because of its 
weakness and poverty, owes its feebleness and sickli- 
ness to turning all attention upon itself. If we but 
knew it, it is because we have such burdens to be 
borne in the home work, that we need the stimulus 
and strength imparted by active missionary effort 
for the most distant and destitute. As Bishop Brooks 
used to say, such excuses resemble the plea of a 
parricide who first kills his own father, and then 
pleads for the pity of the court, in remitting the 
penalty in view of his orphanhood ! 

No vice is more destructive of Christian character 
than greed. Avarice turns a man into a miser who 
has no thought beyond his hoarded gold, like that 
respectable manufacturer in Britain who spent every 
day for twenty years in counting his sovereigns that 
he might gloat over his treasures. And it works 
harm as much to the poor in his penury as to the 
rich in his affluence ; as it led a wretched victim of 
avarice, in one of our American cities, to split htcifer 
mat dies so as to make one into four. On the other 
hand, he who learns the true uses of sanctified 
money understands how it can wield a power next to 
divine, spread the influence of a single life over a 
wide sphere, and perpetuate divine omnipotence 
in the power it may wield ; omnipresence, in the wide 
sphere over which it spreads the influence of one life ; 
and eternity, in the perpetuation of such influence 
long after death. 






VII. 

THE NEW APPEAL OF MAN. 

We tarry to make more emphatic what has been 
already referred to — that voice of human need which 
constitutes a new incentive, for it has never been heard 
as now, and heard all round the horizon like a thunder- 
peal from all quarters at once. Never until now have 
we known what heathenism and paganism mean. The 
numbers which they represent, so great that in 
India alone it would take seventeen years to give 
each woman and girl a Bible, at the rate of 20,000 
a day! And if the unevangelized passed day and 
night before us, one by one, the procession would be 
endless, for a new generation would have grown to 
majority before the present living host could march 
by! The need so awful and the woe so mournful 
that no words can do justice to it, and no figures 
illustrate it. 

What increased knowledge of the wants and woes 
of heathendom ! What a book might be written on 
the condition of mankind in pagan lands — especially 
of women and children; the curse of caste, of dis- 
honoured labour, of human slavery and human 
torture; of the prostitution of virtue in the name of 
religion; of infanticide, parricide, suicide; and the 
countless, nameless enormities and cruelties that 
have made the places where paganism dwells, the 
habitations of demons. "In Darkest Heathendom" 
is a volume not yet written, but it needs to be writ- 
ten. The facts are not new, but the knowledge of 
them is new. The dark places of the earth were 
full of the habitations of cruelty in the prophetic and 
Apostolic ages, but the midnight had not then been 
penetrated, even by the explorer's transient lamp. 
Now we know the horrors and abominations of pagan, 



400 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

papal, heathen, and moslem lands — the awful super- 
stitions and degrading rites that even " the Light of 
Asia" leaves undispelled. 

Near Mauch Chunk, in Pennsylvania, is a burning 
mine at Summit Hill. For thirty-five years every 
effort made to quench it has failed, and at a thousand 
points steam and gas escape ; vegetation is gone and 
the rocks are so hot as to blister the hand at the 
touch. That burning mountain is the awful symbol 
of heathenism. The unquenched fires have burned 
for ages. War has been the almost constant curse 
of a Christless paganism, and, as Henry the Fifth said : 
"War's three handmaidens are Blood, Fire, and 
Famine ; and Famine, awful as it is, meekest of the 
three." 

Nevertheless, there are great possibilities waiting 
for development, even in the heathen world. Gen- 
eral Grant, after his circuit of the globe, pronounced 
Li-Hung-Chang one of the three greatest statesmen 
of the age, ranking him with Gladstone and 
Bismarck. Surely a country that can produce such 
a man ought to be permeated and penetrated by the 
gospel. Sir Bartle Frere witnessed to the indirect 
effect of Christian teaching, that it ever}-where dig- 
nifies labour, sanctifies marriage and family life, and 
uplifts manhood; that, even where it does not con- 
vert and renew, it checks, refines, and reforms; and 
where it fails to sanctify, it, at least, subdues. 

There is great need of new enterprise in the 
department of missions, and there is every encour- 
agement for it. Christ still says: "Follow me, and 
let the dead bury their dead." Like Talleyrand, it 
behooves the Christian disciple to keep his watch 
ahead of the rest of mankind, and rather surpass than 
fall behind worldly men in enterprise for God. The 
time is coming when Christian disciples will look back 
to this age as radically deficient in energy and holy 
activity, just as we now look back to the age when 
William Carey sought to rouse England. 



THE NEW APPEAL OF MAN. 407 

The men who are watching the times are oppressed 
with the incentives God gives us to immediate action. 
Hudson Taylor appeals for the evangelization of 
China within the present generation. Not one- 
hundredth part of the people have yet been reached. 
He has proposed that, within five years, a thousand 
more workers should be put into this special field; 
that two years should be allowed for the study of 
the native tongue, and three years given to direct 
labour; and he says that, estimating the population at 
about fifty millions of families, to reach fifty families 
a day, for one thousand days, by one thousand workers, 
would bring the first proclamation of the gospel to all. 

We know also how critical is the condition of the 
world field, and an incentive to new diligence and 
greatly increased zeal and self-denial, is thus sup- 
plied. If ever in human history delay meant dan- 
ger, nay, certain disaster, it is now. The seasons 
for sowing and reaping, planting and plucking, are 
fixed, and their limits are set by natural laws. A 
season is a fit time, and for all work there is but one 
fit time. The sower wastes his seed if he sows it 
after sowing time ; and when the harvest is ripe the 
reaper must put in the sickle, or soon the harvest 
will not be worth the reaping, for ripeness borders 
on rottenness. Immediate is God's word: now or 
never. In all parts of the mission field it is either 
time to sow or time to reap; and in some cases the 
field invites both sower and reaper at once ; for there 
are some who need the saving message, and others 
who have heard and are ready for further and fuller 
steps of teaching, training, ingathering, organizing. 
We must not think that, because the Church is more 
aroused than a century ago, it is safe to rest content 
with the present measure of interest and that we 
need only to maintain it. The Church of Christ 
has, thus far, not yet begun to deal in earnest with her 
duty to the human race. Four-fifths of the territory 
of heathenism and paganism yet remains to be 



408 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

occupied; and as to the Moslem millions, they are 
scarcely as yet approached ! Even where civilization 
has gone, its contact with paganism has often been a 
curse rather than a blessing ! Christian nations have 
been identified in India and China with opium traffic 
and licensed lust, and in Africa with firearms, slavery 
and whiskey ! This century has known no document 
more pathetically significant than that first letter 
written in English by a Congo native, who thus ad- 
dressed the Archbishop of Canterbury: 

" Great and good chief of the tribe of Christ: 
Greeting: The humblest of your servants kisses the 
hem of your garment, and begs you to send to his 
fellow servants more gospel and less rum. In the 
bonds of Christ — Ugalla." 

There are other developments, besides those of 
time and tide, which "wait for no man." In the 
field given us to till, God's work cannot and will not 
wait. "While we sleep Satan is busy. He will sow 
his seed if we do not sow God's. And his pre-occu- 
pation will double the difficulty when we do under- 
take for God. Yes, if disciples do not sow the wide 
and open fields of the world, demons will. We must 
not sleep, for the devil never does. 

In some cases heathenism is now a house without 
an occupant, "empty, swept, garnished;" people 
tired of idols and ignorance, fling away their false 
faiths and yearn for knowledge. When man is left 
without any religion, he is in greatest risk. Satan 
watches to take possession of the empty house, with 
sevenfold disaster to the soul. Apathy — neglect of 
opportunity — this is all that is needed on the part of 
disciples, and irreparable damage will ensue. While 
we are sending forth one out of five thousand Protes- 
tant Church members, to carry gospel tidings, and 
giving less than a tenth of one per cent, on our 
average income to keep them at work, the consecra- 
tion of self and substance is so far behind that of the 
Apostolic Church that it hints an apostasy. 



THE NEW APPEAL OF MAN. 409 

Watch Satan as he enters every open door, send- 
ing his agents everywhere, poisoning the minds of 
young Japanese and Hindus with Western scepticism 
before we have got our Christian books and tracts 
ready, flooding the Soudan and the Congo valley 
with the drink that drowns reason and conscience, 
before we have sent missionaries there ! 

Opportunity never lingers, and when, if ever, it 
returns, like the Sibyl its price is more costly and its 
precious treasures are less. The Emperor of Brazil 
accounted for the great inferiority of Brazil to the 
great Republic of the north, in one sentence. He 
said: " My countrymen always cry manana! — 
to-morrow, to-morrow ; but the United States citizen 
says to-day!" Would to God the Church would 
stop all boasting of to-morrow and improve to-day. 



VIII. 

HARMONY WITH GOD'S PURPOSE. 

To work with God and on God's plan is the only 
real bliss, and the only sure success. All else is dis- 
appointment and failure. President Lincoln was 
once taunted by an adversary with the temporary 
defeat of political measures which he had adopted in 
the interests of the eternal principles of right. His 
sublime reply was: ''Defeat! If it were not one, 
but one hundred defeats, I should still pursue the 
same unchanging course." And, on another occa- 
sion, when, during the war for the Union, a timid man 
ventured to say: " I hope God will be on our side," 
his response was: " My only anxiety is to be on 
God's side." And it was this man of an incarnate 
conscience whose heroic words were: " Let us 
believe that right makes might, and in that faith let 
us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand 
it." It is the same sentiment that Faber crystallized 
into verse : 

" He always wins who sides with God ; 
With him no chance is lost." 

It is, therefore, of immense importance to us to 
know what God's plan is and then to take our place 
in it. As to the purpose of God in this dispen- 
sation, Anthony Grant has, in his Bampton Lectures, 
given clear and brief statement : ' ' That the gospel 
shall be preached in some places at all times, and in all 
places at some time." And beyond this we know 
very little. How large or rapid are to be the visible 
results in anyone field is a matter never yet unveiled; 
it is one of the secret things that belong unto the 
Lord our God. But what is revealed is His will that 

410 



HARMONY WITH GOD'S PURPOSE. 411 

we should go into all the world and preach the 
gospel to every creature. 

Then if, as George Bowen told Dr. Norman McLeod 
of himself, thirty years are spent in India without one 
known convert, we can still do o*ir duty — for in God's 
eyes that is success; all else, failure. In this doing 
of God's will on God's plan, the holiest aspiration finds 
satisfaction. A divine ambition engrosses the soul. 
This is the avenue to the purest, widest influence. 
One may, at God's bidding, go into comparative 
retirement and obscurity — as Bishop Butler, author 
of the famous "Analogy," into the little country 
parish of Stanhope, so that Archbishop Blackburne 
told Queen Caroline that he was ''not dead, but 
buried " — but if it be at God's bidding it is no burial 
alive, except as a seed secreted for a crop. Butler, 
during that apparent burial, was writing that great 
work which revolutionized the thinking of that 
deistic age ! 

In great crises of Church history some word of 
God has become the rallying cry of His true fol- 
lowers. The motto of the Apostolic age was: 
' ' Christ died for our sins, and rose again, according 
to the Scriptures." During the Lutheran Reforma- 
tion, the watchword was: "The just shall live by 
faith." And, for this age of missions, what is a 
more fitting battle-cry than that which has been 
spontaneously chosen by the Student Volunteers in 
their " New Crusade:" 

the evangelization of the world in this 
generation! 

This, now famous motto, has been traced to the 
writer of these pages, as its author, because he first 
gave it expression at the inauguration of this move- 
ment at Mount Hermon, Mass., eight years ago. But 
the fact is, he got this motto from the thirteenth 
chapter of the Acts, verses 22 and 36, where the 
Holy Spirit says of David, that, God in him found a 



412 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

man after His own heart, which should fulfil all His 
will, and that he served his own generation by the will 
of God. Let us write that divine motto on all our 
banners ! 

How much is included here ! Sovereignty — a divine 
Master; Service — a world's evangelization; Sphere — 
our own generation; a Secret and Signal — the will 
of God. 

A most expressive word is here rendered, "served " 
— it means to be an under-rower, and refers to the 
ancient galleys with their banks of oars, where every 
man who held an oar served under the control of the 
pilot. All God asks of us is to take the place which 
He assigns, and there do our work, watching His 
signal. When there is obedience to His will, there is 
sure to be co-operation with all other obedient souls, 
since they heed the same signal. The conception is 
magnificent. What a symphony of action ! what a 
harmony of movement! — the oars rising and falling, 
dipping and dripping together, though the oarsmen 
see not each other, and plan no such co-operation; 
because one will sways all alike, and controls the 
synchronisms and coincidences of history by a unity 
of universal plan. 

And what identity with God! His will is His 
personality. To serve under that will as the all- 
controlling signal, is to be one with Him — to be 
about our Father's business. What authority! for 
all is done in the name of the one Master. What 
holy audacity! as when David approached Goliath: 
" I come to thee in the name of Jehovah, God of the 
armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied ! " What 
security to him who does the will of God! "All 
things work together for good," in the orbit of obedi- 
ence, which is a part of a universal system where 
God is Sun and Centre ! And what success ! Into the 
channel of our weak and wayward will is turned the 
very river of God — the mighty torrent of His 
omnipotence, to turn the wheels of our life and action, 



HARMONY WITH GOD'S PURPOSE. 413 

and insure uninterrupted power and ultimate accom- 
plishment. And what is the natural sphere of every 
disciple's work and witness, if it be not his own 
generation ? He cannot affect the past generations, 
and the best way to serve the future is by fidelity to 
the present. He may in a sense belong to the whole 
race of man, but he is especially related to the human 
family as living on earth at the same period with him- 
self. Their claims on him are paramount, pressing, 
immediate, imperative. 

If the Church would come into harmony with God's 
purpose, here is the secret: — He must be acknowl- 
edged as absolute Master, and His command must be 
the sole, sufficient authority. Service must be con- 
ceived as part of a full discipleship and even a 
complete salvation ; and that service must be accepted 
as proclaiming the gospel to every human creature. 
The will of God must be the one all-commanding 
signal which we watch, study, and obey. And our 
own generation must be, to our constant thought and 
prayer, the great and present sphere for our ener- 
getic and consecrated activity. 

God has given a banner to them that fear Him, 
that it may be displayed because of the truth. And 
let the Church lift that banner high and bear it in the 
very front of the ranks and the thick of the fight — 
with this motto emblazoned on it : 

SERVING OUR OWN GENERATION BY THE WILL OF GOD. 



IX. 

THE BLESSED HOPE. 

One powerful incentive, of which not only the 
Acts of the Apostles but the whole New Testament 
is full, is, we fear, far less prominent in the thoughts 
of the modern Church — we refer to the blessed hope 
of our Lord's Return. 

This was, no doubt, the foremost of all motives, 
hopes and incentives, which moved early disciples to 
zeal and activity in missions ; and to revive this hope 
— to make it practically the mighty motor to us that 
it was to them* is to provide a new impulse and 
impetus in the work of a world's evangelization. 
This motive, though so old, is an ever new incentive. 
Hope is the one impulse that never loses its youth, 
and above all, this hope. It never falls behind, but 
always goes before, onward, upward, finding in the 
goal of yesterday its starting point to-day, and in its 
goal of to-day only its starting point to-morrow. 

The incentive, drawn from our Lord's promised 
Return, He Himself has forever connected with our 
duty to a lost world. He says, " Occupy till I come" 
Mistaken notions, associated with His second advent, 
have so marred its visage as to make it even re- 
pulsive and distasteful to some disciples, so that, 
what to the Apostolic Church was the main help, 
has been spoken of as a hindrance, to missions. Out 
of the dust of neglect and contempt let us lift this 
standard of the mission host, and once more make it 
the banner which leads us on to victory ! 

Our Lord's Coming is represented as always immi- 
nent, and thus it quickens our activity. Imminence is 
the combination of certainty with uncertainty — cer- 
tainty at some time, uncertainty at what time ; and 

414 



THE BLESSED HOPE. 415 

hence its perpetual warning : ' ' Be ye always ready, 
for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man 
cometh ! " 

The uniform teaching of the New Testament is 
that the Lord is ever at hand. ' ' Behold the Judge 
standeth before the door," His hand on the latch! 
When He will open and enter, no man nor angel 
knoweth; but when He does, it will be suddenly, 
without knocking; and because we " know not when 
the time is," He bids us " Watch and pray." Such a 
sense of the imminence of His coming must inspire, 
quicken, stimulate, missionary activity. 

As the Son of Man went into the far-off country 
to receive for Himself a kingdom, and to return, He 
committed to His servants, as stewards, the whole 
world as a mission field, saying: " Occupy till I 
come," giving no hint of the time of His return, that 
there may be constant alertness and watchfulness. 
And the natural consequence with every faithful ser- 
vant is that he hastens to invest in trade what talents 
are left him in trust, that at his Master's Coming he 
may be found faithful and his gifts fruitful. 

Such is the philosophy of this Hope. What is the 
fact? There are two immutable things in which it 
is impossible for history to lie, namely: first, the 
early Christians felt our Lord's Coming to be im- 
minent; second, the early Church was conspicuous 
for missionary zeal. So vividly was the second 
advent at hand, to Thessalonian disciples, that they 
gave too little heed to those events which must 
first occur; and yet, when was any Church so per- 
meated and penetrated with missionary enthusiasm ! 
Paul sounds the keynote of their whole fidelity: 
serving the living God, and waiting for His Son from 
heaven ! 

Early Christians looked for the King's Return, at 
any time. He had entrusted them with a commis- 
sion, and the King's business required haste. They 
tarried not, save for that enduement which was their 



41G THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

equipment. Then to the bounds of Judea, Samaria, 
Galilee; to Antioch, Athens, Ephesus, Rome, they 
sped with the message. Peter went eastward to the 
elect dispersion; Paul swept, like a flame, westward, 
across Asia Minor, and into Europe, till he touched 
Italy, perhaps Spain and Britain. Within one gener- 
ation, the Cross overtook the Roman Eagle, and the 
priests of false fanes feared lest their work was at an 
end. Such will ever be the power of this Hope over 
those who are by it held in constant expectancy of the 
Lord's advent. 

On the contrary, so soon as we lose sight of its 
imminence and say, " My Lord delayeth His com- 
ing," we are tempted to indolence, self-indulgence, 
and controversy on minor matters. When disciples 
felt the time to be short and the duty to be urgent, 
they were "all at it and always at it;" self-denial 
was an easy yoke and petty jealousies were scorned as 
trifles. So soon and so long as that hope was dim, 
and Christ's Coming was pushed into the far-off future, 
the Church began leisurely working, then flippantly 
playing at missions, as though vast cycles of time lay 
before us in which to witness to the world. Revive 
this hope of the Lord's Coming and it begets hourly 
watching, ceaseless praying, tireless toiling, patient 
waiting. 

Moreover this blessed hope is forever linked with 
the glorious compensation for all service and sacrifice 
for Christ. " Behold I come quickly, and my reward 
is with me, to give every man according as his work 
shall be." 

His Coming then, not our death, opens the door to 
the wedding feast, and the " Joy of the Lord. " Then 
the prize awaits the successful runner. Then the 
"crowns" are to be given — the "crown of life" to 
martyrs faithful unto death, the " crown of righteous- 
ness " to all who love His appearing, the " crown of 
glory" to shepherds who "feed the flock," the 
"crown of rejoicing " to those who win souls, the 



THE BLESSED HOPE. 417 

" crown incorruptible " to those who keep the body 
under and bring it into subjection. 

Is it strange that the soldier of Christ endures 
hardness, fights the good fight of faith, carries the 
cross at all risks to plant it on Satan's strongholds, 
while he is looking daily for the coming of the Cap- 
tain of his salvation, and knows not how soon he may 
lay down his warrior's armour for the crown of victory? 
Paul forgot all his losses in such gains — and counted 
all but refuse, for the sake of the resurrection hope. 
Fellowship with Christ in suffering brings fellowship 
in glory ; and to die with Him as a malefactor is to be 
exalted with Him as a benefactor. 

With many disciples, the eyes are yet blinded to 
this mystery of rewards, which is one of the open 
mysteries of the Word, and some cannot see how 
rewards can have any place in an economy of grace. 
But we must not confound salvation and recompense. 
It must be an imputed righteousness, — exceeding far 
that of the most proper Pharisee — whereby we enter 
the Kingdom of Heaven ; but, having thus entered by 
faith, our xvorks determine our relative rank, place, 
reward, in that Kingdom. Eternal life is God's gift 
to be had for the asking ; but he who receives the gift, 
and does work, sowing and reaping for God, re- 
ceiveth also wages and gathereth fruit unto life 
eternal. Gifts are bestowed ; wages earned. Sinners 
become saved saints only by grace; but saints are 
rewarded for service. And so Paul warns Corin- 
thian Christians that even he who is saved, may be 
saved as by fire and suffer loss in the burning up 
of his worthless work; or he may both be saved 
and have a reward in an abiding work.* 

We shall never have Apostolic missions till this 
Apostolic Hope claims again its rightful place. Daily 
dying — so that in the body one bears the marks of the 
Lord Jesus — will be easy only to him who feels re- 
demption drawing nigh; and who follows the Son 

* Cor. iii. 12-15. 



418 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

of Man in His humiliation, as one who is to sit 
with Him on the Throne of His glory. His expected 
appearing is His saints' avenging and rewarding. 
It is the righting of the wrongs of the ages. Un- 
recompensed toil receives its wages, and long wait- 
ing martyrs reach their coronation. Then, however 
dark the discipline and dismal the failure of mission 
work, faithfulness and not success will be the stand- 
ard and measure of reward. We must have our 
work always done, ready for His scrutiny. 

This hope weans us from the world, and by loosen- 
ing the hold and lessening the worth of all present 
things makes stronger the powers of the age to 
come. The steward whose Master may at once 
come and call him to account, cannot hoard treasures 
of mammon or quaff pleasure's intoxicating cup. 
He cannot bury his "pounds" in houses and lands, 
costly plate and gems, stocks and stores; it must be 
turned into currency — current coin, passing from 
hand to hand, like streams that swell as they flow. 
The time is short, but eternity is long; and, there- 
fore, there is nothing that is "worth while," but to 
push our lines of labour to the ends of earth, and 
keep our witness constant and clear to the end of 
time, that the eternal may sway us rather than the 
temporal. 

Thus this blessed Hope both loosens the hold we 
have on this world and the hold this world has on 
us. A true belief in the testimony of our Lord that 
in such an hour as we think not He cometh, and that 
we must watch and pray because we know not when 
the time is — makes impossible all plans for a soft 
nest and an easy life of indulgence and indolence, 
for the end of all things is at hand, and the mid- 
night cry may soon be heard. What have we to do 
with any pursuits or pleasures which His coming 
could interrupt or condemn, bring into contempt or 
bring to naught ! If we are to build Heaven here, 
we may be justified in laying deep and firm founda- 



THE BLESSED HOPE. 419 

tions ; but if all these things are to be dissolved, if 
all work not done for God is to be burned up as 
wood, hay, stubble, and the work done for God is to 
be tried by fire — then what folly to spend our faculty 
and vital force upon what is to be turned to ashes ! 
Let us walk with God and work with God, and so 
prepare a structure of character and of service which 
shall survive the fiery ordeal. 

Perhaps at no one point does the hope of our 
Lord's Return touch our need so closely and vitally 
as in this — that it incites to unselfish service. Missions 
appeal more than any other form of service to the 
unworldly and unselfish spirit, and find only in such 
spirit their support, nay their practical basis. Much 
that goes by the name of "Christian work" is 
leavened with self-love, is prosecuted in the energy 
of the flesh, and finds its real though unconscious 
incentive in the worldly hope of rich returns of 
temporal advantage. A railway corporation might, 
on commercial principles, help to build schools and 
churches along its lines, for these form a nucleus for 
population, and so for ultimate dividends to stock- 
holders; much that men call benevolence is but the 
cloak that hides the shrewd Shylock, who has an eye 
to business. 

The modern outcry that "missions do not pay," 
comes of this selfish, calculating spirit that demands 
prompt payments of interest on every investment. 
Cut to the core the apathy that exists as to work among 
the heathen, and you find simple selfishness. This 
work in the regions beyond, by its very nature forbids 
such returns: these distant, destitute souls cannot 
recompense us. The most passionate appeals for 
perishing millions along the Congo, beneath the 
shadows of the Himalayas or in the Corean 
valleys, will be unheeded by hearts electroplated 
with greed or petrified by selfishness. Of course 
missions "do not pay," if "pay" means any form 
of temporal recompense. Missions are not a mint 



420 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

for coining sovereigns, but a means of saving souls 
and witnessing to Christ. 

To give money and send men and women to the 
ends of the earth to sacrifice themselves for canni- 
bals and Hottentots, half brutal and half idiotic sav- 
ages, "human baboons" and stupid barbarians, is 
putting money into a bag with holes and burying 
pearls in rubbish, — so say the worldly-minded. And 
we join no issue with such. Missions to the heathen 
yield slow returns, and seldom justify to human 
judgment the costly outlay. God, perhaps, does not 
mean they shall. He gives us this work as nearest 
in motive and spirit to that which brought Jesus to 
the cross, as the most unselfish work in which we 
can engage; and, because its essence lies in self- 
oblivion, the spirit of missions is the spirit of Christ. 
To be a true missionary we must be emptied of self — 
give to those from whom we cannot hope to receive, 
and bid to the feast those who are not likely to have 
any feast to invite us to ; and so the miser dies when 
the missionary is born ; the carnal is cast out if the 
spiritual is to come in ; only he who loses himself can 
save others. 

But just here the hope of the Lord's Coming sup- 
plies exactly what is needed. It gives us a loftier 
level than this world affords, from which to take our 
survey. Once let this conviction, this consciousness 
flood the soul of the believer, that the Risen Lord is 
himself coming back, and may at any time turn His 
promise into His presence — and this outpouring of 
consecrated gifts and devoted lives for the sake of 
the lost, becomes a breaking of the alabaster flask 
upon Jesus' feet, and there is "purpose" in this 
"waste." John may solve what to Judas is a 
mystery. 

The blessed Hope, which our Lord would have 
us to restore to its former and deserved prominence, 
has a subtle influence in refining character of 
selfishness, and this makes it the very matrix and 



THE BLESSED HOPE. 421 

mould of missions. Its whole tendency is to turn 
our thoughts away from self to Him, to relax our 
hold upon all else, and remould us after the power 
of an endless life. It makes all time seem short and 
the whole world seem small, dwarfs the present age 
into insignificance, and lifts the age to come like a 
towering peak that leaves all else far below. 

In those seven epistles to the Churches which open 
the Apocalypse, our Lord uses His imminent Coming 
as a perpetual hope, motive, incentive; and this is 
enough to make it a sin, if not a crime, to lose sight of 
it. It was because His Coming was ever at hand when 
trials were to end and triumphs to begin, that the 
Ephesians must bear, have patience, and not faint; 
the Smyrnese endure the ten days of tribulation ; the 
Pergamoans hold fast His name and not deny the 
faith ; the Thyatirans resist Jezebel's seductions ; the 
Sardians keep up their watch and keep white their 
garments; the Philadelphians keep the Word of His 
Patience, and the Laodiceans abandon lukewarmness 
for ardour and fervour. 

This blessed Hope is the crown of all other hopes, 
and suggests to us an expectation that will be 
realized. 

Much of the discouragement felt in connection 
with missions results from a mistaken notion as to 
what is to be their proper outcome ; and it is so vital 
to both our true work and our true joy that we 
understand our Lord's plan, that it may be well for 
us to go back to the rudiments and begin anew, lest 
we have built into our missionary conceptions some 
elements not warranted by the Word. 

There are many who understand by our Lord's 
parables of the mustard seed and leaven, a gradual 
growth and extension of the kingdom, during the 
present dispensation, until the world is transformed 
into one great believing brotherhood. In this view 
the gospel is a seed set in the soil of society, to take 
root and grow until the earth is filled with its far- 



422 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

reaching branches ; or it is a leaven, hid in the three 
measures of meal — the world, the flesh and the devil ! 
— to leaven the lump, modifying the evil it touches, 
until the world is changed into the Church, the flesh 
into the spirit, and the devil is driven out altogether, 
like the gases that escape from the fermenting 
dough. 

Does the Scripture teaching justify us in looking 
for the " conversion of the world " during the pres- 
ent dispensation, or is this the period of the out- 
gathering of the Church from all nations? This is 
not a question of mere curiosity or speculation ; it 
concerns the whole work of missions. For what are 
we to labour, and what is to be our rational scrip- 
tural hope? James bade the first council at Jerusa- 
lem hearken unto him as he reminded them of God's 
purpose as declared by Simeon, visiting the gentiles 
" to take out of than a people for His name." 

That is not only uniformly declared to be the exact 
purpose of gospel witness during these times of the 
gentiles, but it has been the actual result of these 
nearly two thousand years of such witness. At this 
advanced age history is interpreting prophecy and 
expounding Scripture, if we will but hear it. We see 
good growths and rich harvests from the seed of the 
kingdom; but the tares are growing side by side 
with the wheat, and we are divinely told that they 
will so continue until the end of the age. Our high- 
est "Christian civilization " is an amalgamation of 
the Church and the world; and the leaven of the 
world is as surely in the Church, as the influence of the 
Church is in the world. No doubt the world is more 
churchly, but there is as little doubt that the Church 
is more worldly. The dialect of Ashdod corrupts 
the language of Canaan. The strait gate is wider 
and the narrow way is broader than of old ; and those 
who would come into the kingdom find an easy en- 
trance and an attractive avenue, smooth-paved and 
bordered with flowers. How few even profess self- 



THE BLESSED HOPE. 423 

denial in cross bearing! If the schools have found 
no royal road to learning, the Church has built one 
to Heaven. 

The proofs are sadly at hand of that conformity to 
the world which is so positively forbidden. For 
ages the slime of the serpent has been upon certain 
worldly amusements which, whatever be their in- 
herent quality, bear the stamp of Satan's ownership 
and use. And yet Church members sit till midnight 
over "progressive euchre," enter their thorough- 
breds on the race-course, tipple over the wine cup, 
whirl through the giddy dance, sanction the theatre 
and use its flavour to give relish to church socials. 
Church life is honeycombed with worldliness, and 
practical separation is reduced to a minimum. The 
great body of disciples are only nominally such, 
either wholly worldly or worldly holy ; at the door 
of frivolous gaiety they drop their Christian con- 
sistency, as an oriental guest shuffles off his sandals, 
and mix freely with the idolaters of folly and fashion. 
The Church is to-day in danger of the moral putre- 
faction that loses all godly savour, and the moral 
petrifaction that loses all godly sensibility. Apos- 
tolic piety scarcely survives in the Church at large. 
Disciples rarely keep themselves unspotted from the 
world; and, instead of the isolation and insulation 
necessary for receiving and conveying spiritual 
power, it is only here and there that we find a few 
who seem to be filled with the Spirit. 

As to the condition of the world, even in this 
boasted nineteenth century, it is as far from ' ' con- 
version," say the most sagacious students of history, 
as in the days of Augustus. When the glamour and 
halo of all this deceptive glory is penetrated, what 
do we find? An era of inventive genius and worldly 
enterprise, but God-denying and God-defying infidel- 
ity and anarchy. Giant sons of Anak go about break- 
ing down faith in God and the Bible. Philosophy 
blooms into pantheism and materialism, rationalism 



424 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

and agnosticism. Some who have drawn their very- 
life from Christianity now turn to curse the dam that 
nursed, and wound the breast that fed, them. 

The ripeness of modern civilization borders on rot- 
tenness, and while men boast of society, its founda- 
tions sink ; and the anarchy, which is the natural end 
of atheism, threatens all with wreck. Science itself 
has furnished the lawless with weapons which are 
equally mighty against ballot or bullet; and Germany 
and Russia, France and Britain, and the great Repub- 
lic, are to-day at the mercy of the dynamite fiend ! 

Notwithstanding such signs of the times, there are 
some who regard the outlook as so hopeful that they 
think the recent " Parliament of Religions" was the 
inauguration of the millennium. What enviable 
sleight of mind that can turn everything into signs 
of progress! Popular education and swift locomo- 
tion answer to the prediction: "Many shall run to 
and fro in the earth, and knowledge shall be 
increased." In the triumphs of electric telegraph and 
telephone, the "lightning cometh from the east and 
shineth unto the west." Irrigation and agriculture 
make "glad the wilderness and solitary place, and 
make the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose." 
The ocean cables and swift steamships have so joined 
the continents that there is "no more sea;" and in 
peace societies and courts of arbitration, nations 
"learn war no more." By wide dispersion of God's 
word and witnesses, the earth is ' ' full of the knowl- 
edge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." In 
the sympathy and unity of believers our Lord's 
prayer is fulfilled, that they "all may be one." 
Rude and barbarous tribes are enlightened — "the 
cow and the bear feed ; " and in converted cannibals, 
the lion eats " straw like the ox; " the savages, rapa- 
cious like the wolf, ferocious like the leopard, become, 
by civilization, the gentle lamb and harmless kid. 
Those who, with this singular ease, find fulfilment of 
prediction, have sometimes gone further, and sug- 



THE BLESSED HOPE. 425 

gested that in Britain we have the "lion," and in 
Russia the " bear," and in the young Republic beneath 
the setting sun, the "little child" that leads them! 
and that China may be the "red dragon," whose 
tail draws after it a third part of the race, yet in 
the contest with Christian England " prevailed 
not!" 

From all such frivolous methods of dealing with 
the Scripture and with facts, we turn candidly to 
ask what does the New Testament encourage us to 
hope for as the outcome of our missionary work? 

If we read aright, the teaching of our Lord is 
plain. God's present purpose is that the gospel shall 
everywhere be preached for a witness unto the na- 
tions and for the outgathering of the Ecclesia; and 
then shall the end come, and the Lord Himself return 
and possess the kingdom, and carry its triumphs to 
completion. It is true that, after nineteen centuries 
of Christian history, and at the close of this great 
missionary century, the gospel net encloses all sorts 
of fish, both good and bad — swordfish and toadfish, 
mansharks as well as blood-tinged salmon and 
delicious cod — devilfish as well as angelfish, — it is 
true that the tares still grow as vigorously as the 
wheat and defy uprooting. And yet this is exactly 
what the Lord foretold as the outcome of this dis- 
pensation; and to see this gives power to the faint 
and courage to the desponding. Instead of being 
dismayed at the parallel progress of good and evil, 
we expect it and are not disappointed. Hope is not 
crushed, for we have not attempted impossibilities. 
Signs of continued rejection of the message and 
abounding iniquity in the world, or of love waxing 
cold in the Church, do not overwhelm the true mis- 
sionary with a sense of defeat. God is working out 
His plan just as He forecast it, notwithstanding. 
The devil's great wrath may only be due to the 
shortness of his time; and the ripeness of the tares 
may only hint the nearness of the harvest. 



426 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

The prominence given to this blessed hope of 
our Lord's Return, in Scripture, justifies the promi- 
nence given to it in this treatment of the subject 
of missions, for it is vitally related to our courage 
and confidence in carrying on our work. 

Hope defeated, or even deferred, makes the heart 
sick, and heart-sickness is fatal to successful service. 
There is a hope that banishes such a malady and 
in its place gives ever new vigour and strength for 
serving and suffering ; and that is a hope founded on 
a distinct promise, and actually fulfilling before our 
eyes. If we are discouraged or despairing, our need 
and remedy is, perhaps, a laying hold of the hope 
set before us in the gospel. As the Scriptures war- 
rant no expectation of the world's conversion in this 
age of witness, so far as we look for such result we 
work on the wrong basis, and will either be dis- 
appointed or deceived in the outcome. 

The soldier who misconceives the object of a cam- 
paign, may falsely construe all the movements of the 
army. If he thinks the whole force of the foe is to be 
captured, the seizure of a few leading strongholds 
seems only next to absolute defeat. But, if he knows 
that this is exactly according to orders from head- 
quarters, and that the plan of his great commander is 
thus carried out, seizing and holding certain strategic 
points, and waiting for him to arrive with reinforce- 
ments, what would otherwise have seemed defeat, 
now becomes success. 

Does it matter nothing whether, in our work of 
missions, we are hoping for results which are moving 
on toward fruition or not? Let the disciple once 
get firmly planted upon this rock basis, that we are 
sent forth not to accomplish a world's conversion, 
but only its evangelization, and victory springs up 
out of defeat. Hope that had lost wings, plumes 
herself for a new flight, and over the grave of buried 
expectation rises with the song of a lark. Satan 
has gained no unforeseen advantage, and even his 



THE BLESSED HOPE. 427 

movements are all comprehended in God's wider 
plans. Every backward movement in history is like 
the receding wave, the preparation for a forward 
advance to a higher floodmark. 



X. 

THE NEW OUTLOOK. 

There is a promise and prophecy which all history is 
actually fulfilling. Watch the panorama of the ages as 
it unrolls; see each new scene in vivid colours fill 
out that shadowy outline pencilled by prophecy. Ever 
since Pentecost flamed with its tongues of fire, God 
has been visiting nation after nation, to take out of 
them a people for His name. At first the door of 
faith was opened to the Jew, and the proselytes, gath- 
ered from all nations, went back, like the Ethiopian 
eunuch, to witness to the peoples among whom they 
dwelt. Then the door was opened to the Samari- 
tans, Syrians, people of Asia Minor and Greece ; then 
to those of Italy, Gaul, Britain, Germany; till in 
our day God successively flings wide the portals of 
India and Burmah, Syria and Turkey, Siam and 
China, Africa, Japan, Corea and the Isles of the Sea; 
yes, even the papal strongholds, France, Italy and 
Spain. 

And now Thibet, the shrine and throne of the 
Grand Lama, Buddhism's capital, seems compelled to 
open her two-leaved gates. God is doing with all 
these natives just as He said, and in some on a grand 
scale — "taking out of them a people for His name." 
Witness the Hawaiian Islands, now a Christian na- 
tion; the half million native converts in India; the 
scores of self-supporting churches along the Tigris 
and Euphrates; the Kho-thah-byu Memorial Hall, 
rallying and radiating centre for thirty thousand 
Christian Karens; the two thousand churches of 
Polynesia ; New Japan, with its giant strides toward 
Christian civilization; McAll's hundred gospel salles 
and thousands of converts in atheistic France ; Mada- 
gascar becoming to Africa what England is to 



THE NEW OUTLOOK. 429 

Europe; and China turning converts into evan- 
gelists. 

Starting from Jerusalem, over eighteen and a half 
centuries since, and moving westward, the flag of 
the cross has been unfurled successively in Antioch, 
Rome, Alexandria, and Constantinople; borne from 
the shores of Britain to a New World across the 
Atlantic ; across that New World to the Pacific and 
the isles of the sea; over the Pacific to Japan and 
Corea and the various lands from the Chinese Sea 
to the Arabian Gulf and the Golden Horn; and thus, 
completing the circuit of the globe, we once more 
set up the standard in Jerusalem, the original place 
of the cross ! 

Meanwhile, this girdle of missions is widening 
into a zone, spreading northward toward the ice- 
bergs of Greenland and the snow castles of Siberia, 
and southward toward the Cape of Good Hope and 
the Land of Fire. We have only to lengthen our 
cords and strengthen our stakes, and every creature 
may yet be reached with the good tidings and hope 
may reap the fruition of Scripture promise. Then, 
when from gentile nations, the last convert shall have 
been gathered and incorporated into Christ's mys- 
tical body; when the Ecclesia — the "out-called" 
ones — shall be complete, and the Bride hath made 
herself ready, the Bridegroom shall return to claim 
His own. The fulness of the gentiles being come 
in, the blindness of Israel shall be removed ; through 
eyes no longer veiled, and dimmed only by peni- 
tential tears, they shall look on Him whom they 
pierced and wounded in the house of His friends, 
and so all Israel shall be saved and the fallen and 
ruined Tabernacle of David be rebuilt. Then shall 
the residue of men and all the gentiles seek after the 
Lord, and see the salvation of God. 

All these motives and incentives, old and new, 
unite to sweep over us a deep conviction and per- 
suasion, like a mighty tidal wave beneath whose 



430 THE NEW ACTS OF THE ATOSTLES. 

majestic movement all minor issues are buried. If 
we discern the signs of the times, there is a redness 
in the evening sky which hints the dawn of a glori- 
ous day. The present crisis of missions should com- 
pel us to forget all lesser interests and issues, and 
hasten to bear the good news unto earth's very ends. 
Labourers should be multiplied, gifts increased, and, 
with a new energy born in us of the Holy Spirit, 
this greatest enterprise of the ages should be under- 
taken. 

This gospel of the kingdom must first be preached 
in all the world for a witness unto all nations ; and 
then shall the end come. 

There is a legitimate way of hastening toward, if 
not of hastening, that end : promptly to occupy every 
open door, and amply to sow every open field. While 
we pray, "Thy kingdom come," how far may we 
answer our own prayer ! The whole creation groan - 
eth and travaileth in pain together, waiting for an 
apathetic Church to do its duty. Within our gen- 
eration a thousand millions of human beings will go 
down to the grave without faith or hope, life or even 
light; one hundred thousand die daily, while forty 
millions of Protestant believers, idle and unmoved, 
see this wholesale descent into the darkness beyond ! 
And yet there are four hundred professed disciples 
in Protestant communions for every one of that 
hundred thousand that each day pass into the great 
unknown. How far-reaching and all-powerful might 
be the evangelism of these Protestant disciples, if 
once organized, economized and vitalized by the 
spirit of missions and the Spirit of God ! 

Since Jesus of Nazareth, through the rent veil of 
His flesh and the rent door of His tomb, opened to 
every believer the path of life, nearly nineteen cen- 
turies have fled, during which a vast number of souls, 
equal to twenty times the present population of the 
globe, have gone down to the grave, ignorant of 
Christ. And during all these centuries, He who is 



THE NEW OUTLOOK. 431 

of purer eyes than to behold evil, has confronted 
the woe and want and wickedness of heathenism ! 
Through all this time God has been preparing His 
Church to enter these new open doors, and the 
Messiah, who was cut off without generation, has 
been waiting to see of the travail of His soul and be 
satisfied, waiting for his bride to make herself ready 
and put on her beautiful attire. 

During the last hundred years, since Carey led the 
way, a series of providential interpositions and gra- 
cious manifestations that deserve to rank with mira- 
cles, have set upon mission work the sanction and 
seal of God. Colossal obstacles have been removed 
and huge barriers subsided, long locked gates been 
burst, and grand triumphs won. Why do we hesi- 
tate ! Let the hosts of the Lord rally to the onset. 
The great Leader of the host even now sounds His 
imperial clarion along the whole line of battle. Let 
us obey the signal, boldly pierce the very centre of 
the enemy's forces, turn their staggering wings, and 
in the confidence of faith, move forward, a united 
army, in one overwhelming charge ! 

Late one summer afternoon, now thirty years ago, 
a sudden rainpour fell in Virginia, Nevada. It was 
very unexpected, for those rainless summer skies 
seldom yield even a shower. After the rain ceased, 
a dense darkness drew its pall over the whole sky; 
and Mount Davidson's vast eastern slope that over- 
looks the city, was so enveloped in darkness that 
the mountain could scarcely be distinguished from 
the cloud masses that surrounded it. 

A remarkable phenomenon drew all eyes toward 
the mountain peak. Upon the lofty summit a little 
tongue of golden flame moved strangely to and fro, 
like some supernatural signal. It was very small 
but bright, and the more conspicuous against the 
dense, dark background of storm cloud. Most 
strange of all, this fire neither waxed nor waned, but 
simply burned on. 



432 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

It was at first a mystery; but, in fact, it was the 
nation's flag, planted on the mountain's peak, and 
waving in the wind. Through a narrow rift of cloud 
the rays of the setting sun had found their way; and 
that flag of the Republic lay just in the line of their 
direction, and so they touched it alone, resting upon 
it, glorifying, transfiguring it. For an hour that 
burning banner held the fixed, fascinated gaze of the 
multitude. And it afterwards proved that the setting 
sun, which thus gilded and glorified the star-spangled 
banner, had that same day looked down on the fall 
of Vicksburg and the victory at Gettysburg, which 
were the decisive turning points of the war for the 
Union. 

Darkness overspreads the earth and gross dark- 
ness the people. But God's glory arises, and is seen 
in the work of missions. We have but to lift our eyes 
and look, and we may see that, on the very summits 
of heathendom and in the midst of the death-shade, 
the heroic soldiers of the Lord Jesus have planted 
the banner of the cross, and there it still waves, a 
trophy of coming triumphs. The glory of God rests 
upon all faithful testimony to His name, and makes it 
still a tongue of fire. While we set up the cross on 
the high places of the earth, and seem but solitary, 
God's great plan of battle comprehends both the 
world and the age, and takes in all fields of conflict 
and all faithful witnesses. We may not see it or 
know it, but elsewhere decisive battles are taking 
place, and strongholds of evil are giving way before 
the onset of God's hosts. In His eyes, which com- 
mand the whole field and period of conflict, while we 
see only discouragement and defeat, the tide of bat- 
tle may be turning ! 

The task on which we entered in the discussion of 
the great theme is now in a sense completed. No 
one could be more sensible than the writer of these 
pages, how little justice has been done to the marvels 
of this missionary century. But our eyes must be 



THE NEW OUTLOOK. 433 

turned forward, rather than backward. What God 
has wrought, with a Church just waking- from the 
sleep of fifteen hundred years, is but a prophetic hint 
of what He will do, if, thoroughly roused to holy 
action, His people meet the duty of the hour with 
the faith, the prayer, the sacrifice, the consecration, 
which the crisis demands. 

The New Acts of the Apostles is, like the old, an 
unfinished book. Other chapters wait to be written. 
What shall they record ! God grant that the unwrit- 
ten history of the years before us may embrace far 
greater marvels than have ever been witnessed! 
New Pentecosts with floods of blessing, until, as 
Malachi says, there be "none left to pour out!" 
New Apostles, until God's chosen heralds leave 
no Regions Beyond unpenetrated, and no creature 
unreached! New visions and voices, until every 
divine lesson is learned, and the whole Church is in 
living accord with the Master! New converts and 
martyrs, until the Saviour's soul has found its full 
satisfaction for its travail ! New signs and wonders, 
until even unbelievers confess the work to be of God ! 
New hopes and incentives, if indeed, any be needful 
to inspire to ever-increasing fidelity, or possible to 
enhance the grandeur of existing motives! 

But all this depends on the manifested Presence of 
the Redeemer, in the power of that Holy Spirit, 
whose holy ministries made luminous with glory the 
Acts of the Apostles ! 



NDEX 



Abdul Medjid, Sultan, 319. 

Abdul Messeh, 262. 

Accuracy in Science, 125. 

Activity and Piety, 390. 

Acts of Apostles, and Missions, 
4, 156; Conversions in, 210; 
Incomplete Book, 6, 7, 9 ; Rela- 
tion to Gospels, 5,6, 7, 154. 

Acts of the Holy Ghost, 4, 5. 

Adams, John, at Pitcairn Island, 
249. 

Adaptation of the Gospel, ill, 
179, 288. 

Administration, Providential, 322; 
Holy Spirit's, 202. 

Advent, The Second, 11, 414. 

Africa, 105, 123 ; Missions in, 267. 

Africaner, 2 1 9. 

Agabus, Prophecy of, 202. 

Agnew, Eliza, 134, 342. 

Aimless Life, 95. 

Altar at Athens, 181. 

America, Discovery of, 24. 

American Bapt. Missionary Union, 
106, 340, 368. 

American Bible Society, 102. 

American Board, C. F. M., 102, 
104, 106, 307. 

American Slavery, 35. 

Amorites, Iniquity of, 19. 

Amusements, Worldly, 397, 423. 

Anxsthetics, 41. 

Andover, Mass., 102. 



Aneityum, 339, 344. 
Angekoks, 213. 
Angelo, M., 3, 107. 
Aniline dyes, 39. 
Aniwa, 316, 347. 
"Annus Mirabilis," 305. 
Answered Prayers, 352. 
Antioch, Missionaries sent from, 53. 
Apollonius, 107. 
Apollos, 60; Training of, 201. 
Apostasy, Signs of, 393. 
" Apostates of Anvil," etc., 98. 
Apostles, The New, 199. 
Apostolate of Women, 133. 
Apostolic Age, 329 ; Church, 107. 
Apostolic Succession, 61, 202. 
Appeal of Man's Want, 405. 
Appropriation, Law of, 29. 
" Arabian Nights, The," 30. 
Archduchess, Maria Dorothea, 363. 
Areopagus, 181. 
Aristotle, 64. 
Armadas, The, 316. 
Army, God's great, 320. 
Arnold, Dr. Thomas, 390. 
Arnold, Matthew, 351. 
Amot, F. S., 182. 
" Ars Magna," 64. 
Art and Nature, 206. 
Assimilation to Idols, 398. 
Assimilation, World-wide, 32. 
Associations, 44 ; (see Y. M. C. A., 
Y. W. C. A., etc.) 



43G 



INDEX. 



Athens, 181. 
Augsburg, 309. 
Augustine, 63. 
Authority in service, 412. 
Authority to preach, 201. 
Avarice in Ministry, 198. 
Avarice, Power of, 400. 

Bacheler, Dr. 0. R., 384. 
Balance of Power, 32. 
Baldwin, Rev. S. L., 23S. 
Bangweolo Lake, 246. 
Banner Bay, ill. 
Banza Manteke, 16, 273. 
Baptismal Regeneration, 67. 
Baptist Churches, and Judson, I S6. 
Baptist Missionary Union (see 

A. B. M. U.) 
Baptist Missions, 343, 354. 
Barbarism, 31. 
Barnabas, 53. 
Barnum, Rev. H. N., 346. 
Basutoland, 16. 
Baxter, Hon. W. E., 261. 
Baxter, Richard, 73. 
Baxter's " Call," 73. 
Bayard Taylor, 72. 
Beatitudes, Crown of, 397. 
Bechuanas, 331-2. 
Beck, John, 214. 
Beecher, Dr. Lyman, 351. 
Beirut, 327, 383. 
Believers as witnesses, 158. 
Benevolence and character, 103, 

389- 
Bengel, 3. 

Bentinck, Gov. Wm., 327. 
Berlin, Conference at, 34. 
Bernard, Sir Chas., 342. 



Berridge, John, 25. 

Bethel Church, India, 239. 

Bible, as Evangelist, 249 ; God's 
Book, 3, 12, 241, 284; Criticism 
of, 393 ; Distribution of, 24, 104 ; 
Study of, 324; Translations of, 72, 
79. 95. 99, 107, 115, 119,214, 
257, 268, 338, 339 ; Treasures 
of, 80, 107, 241. 

Bible Societies, 104. 

Bickersteth, Sara, 253. 

Binckley, Rev. S. L., 236. 

Biography, Key of History, 52. 

Birth Hours of History, 20, 391. 

Bishops in Early Church, 198. 

Bismarck, 406. 

Black, Rev. Dr., 363. 

Blackburne, Archbishop, 411. 

Blackfeet Indians, 231, 234. 

Blantyre, Scotland, 123. 

Blessedness of giving, 396. 

Boardman, Rev. G. D., 17, 224. 

Body and Spirit, 192. 

Boehnisch, Fred., 213. 

Bolivia, Missions in, 113. 

Bonar, Rev. Andrew, 363. 

Boniface, 222. 

Botany, 403. 

Boughton, Dr. Gabriel, 384. 

" Bounty," Mutineers of the, 250. 

Bowen, Rev. Geo., 411. 

Brahman Apostle, 238. 

Brahmanism, 176, 260. 

Brahmans and Gov. Bentinck, 327. 

Brainerd, David, 73. 

Brazil, Emperor of, 409. 

Breckling, 76. 

Breecks, The, 311. 

Britain and Slavery, 35. 



INDEX. 



437 



Brooks, Rev. Phillips, 404. 
Brougham, Lord, 132. 
Brown, Rev. A. G., 109. 
Buckingham Canal, 327. 
Buda-Pesth, 363-4. 
Buddhism in Practice, 337. 
Buddhist and Neesima, 243. 
Buddhist Temples, 379. 
Bunker, Rev. A., 311. 
Bunyan, John, 21, 96. 
Burial Rites in Africa, 335. 
Burial of slave-relics, Jamaica, 

265-6. 
" Buried " at Stanhope, 411. 
Burke, Edmund, 391. 
Burma, 17, 105, 136, 222, 340, 

343- 
Burns, Rev. W. C, 309, 361. 
Burns, Robert, 178. 
Butler, Bishop, 411. 
Button, Jemmy, 113. 

Cairo, Palms near, 206. 

Calabar Missions, 268. 

Calcutta, 94 ; Review, 132 ; Univer- 
sity of, 132. 

Call to Work, 106, 152. 

Calling of Apostles, etc., 199. 

Calling, Every work a, 201. 

Calvin, John, 21. 

Cambridge University, 370. 

Cameroons, The, 268. 

Camp meeting at Ililo, 280 

Canaan, Possessing, 29. 

Cannibalism, 31, 235, 257-8, 331, 
342. 

Canning, George, 132. 

Canterbury, Archbishop of, 40S. 

Capron, Mrs. S. 1!., 135. 



Carey, William, 21, 24-5, 28, 30, 
46, 73. 75- 6 , 9°, 94, 102, 105, 
116, 124, 129, 263, 327, 352, 
354-5, 406. 

Carlyle, Thos., 51. 

Caste, 176-7, 263-4. 

Catallactics, 32. 

Catherine of Sienna, 220. 

Ceremonialism, 163. 

Cesarea, Pentecost at, 15. 

Ceylon, 342. 

Chalmers, Rev. Thos., 130. 

"Chapters, The New," 3-10. 

Character, Force of, 95, 144. 

Charles, Mrs., 127, 

Chelczicky, 86. 

Children, Training of, 403. 

China, 98; and Education, 31, 33 ; 
Famine in, 320 ; Missions in, 69, 
143, 342, 3 6l > 3 8 7, 407 ; Inland 
Mission, 143 ; Persecution in, 36 ; 
Rebellion in, 310; "View of," 
by Morrison, 100. 

Chinese, Civilization, 19, 20; Char- 
acter, 235; Dictionary, 100; 
Grammar, 100; Tongue, 99; 
Choirs, 198. 

Christ, and the Paraclete, 6, 12; 
Incarnation of, 1 1 ; Love for 
Scripture, 3 ; Promise of, 156 ; 
Second coming of, II, 414. 

Christian Nations, Influence of, 91. 

Christian Religion, unique, 337. 

Christian VI., 84. 

Christlieb, Prof. Theo., 84, 329. 

Chulalangkorn, 183, 320. 

Chunder Sun, 262. 

Church Missionary Society, 254, 
3 6 9- 



438 



INDEX. 



Church, Mission of the, 108; type 

of the, 173. 
Church Life, Conditions of, 400. 
Civilization, and missions, 32. 
Civilization, World-wide, 31, 32. 
Civilization, Rottenness of, 424. 
Clark, Rev. F. E., 169. 
Clarkson and Slavery, 35. 
Clergy and Laity, 162. 
Clericalism, 308. 
Climax in oratory, 1 3 1. 
Clough, Rev. J. E., 17, 326, 

368. 
Coan, Rev. Titus, 279, 321, 348. 
Coincidences, Law of, 301. 
Coincidences, Proof from, 301, 

366. 
Coleridge, S. T., 144, 359. 
College, " Fort William," 95. 
College, Malacca, 100. 
Colonization Society, 102, 105, 
Columbian Exposition, 34. 
Communication, World-wide, 29. 
Communities Transformed, 249. 
Community of Goods, 155. 
Compass, The, 24. 
Conformity to the World, 423. 
Confucius, 31, 33. 
Congo, Pentecost on, 273. 
Conscience, Liberty of, 36 ; Loyalty 

to, 126; Misguided, 327-8. 
Consecration, 197. 
Constantine, 23, 166. 
Constantinople, Fall of, 24. 
Contagious Diseases Act, 358. 
Conversion, Conscious, 107; Miracle 

of, 206, 210; of World, 422. 
Converts, Witness of, 163 
Convex Mirror, 132. 



Cook, Rev. Jos., ^^. 

Cook's Voyages, 94, 97, 116, 327. 

Co-operative Unions, 44. 

Corea, 3S2. 

Cornelius, Conversion of, 15. 

Coronation at Madagascar, 228-9. 

Cosmogony, Hindu, 31. 

" Court Language," 33. 

Crater, Kilauea, 221. 

Cree Indians, 230 ; Bible of, 234. 

Crises, of Church Life, 392; of 

Missions, 327, 407. 
Criticism, The Higher, 60. 
Critics of Missions, 351. 
Croly, Rev. Dr., 20. 
Crucifixion, Story of, 278. 
" Crusade, The Modern," 365. 
Crusades, 63. 
Cushman, Clara, 134. 
Custom, 162. 
Cuvier, 31. 
Cyprian, 162. 

Daguerre, 41. 

Dante, 375. 

Dark Ages, The, 61. 

Darwin and Patagonia, III, 114 

179. 
David, Christian, 86. 
Davis, Dr., 324. 
Deans, Jeanie, 402. 
Death of Livingstone, 243. 
Deccan, The, 238. 
Defeat, 410. 
Delay, Danger of, 407. 
Delay, " No Longer," 22. 
Delhi, 379. 

Denmark, 78 ; Missions in, 344. 
Desire of all nations, 20. 



INDEX. 



439 



Despard, Secretary, 1 13. 

Diaconate, Institution of, 159. 

Diana, Worship of, 210, 330. 

Diaspora, The, 87, 

Dick's " Future State," 124. 

Diffusion, 172. 

Dingaan, Chief, 1 13. 

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 52. 

Discipline of giving, 400. 

Dispersion of witnesses, 172. 

Disruption, Scotch Church, 129. 

Distribution of labor, 159, 160. 

Diversity of sphere, 144. 

"Divine Contemplation," 65. 

Division of labor, 159, 160. 

Dober, 84, 87-8. 

Dorcas, 201. 

Doshisha, The, 17, 242, 325. 

Drury, Robt, 227. 

Dryden, 305. 

Duff, Rev. Alex., 78, 80, 105, 128, 

330- 
" Duff Lectureship," 132. 
Dufferin, Lord, 333. 
Duncan, Rabbi, 364. 
Duncan, William, 17, 71, 252,333, 

346. 

East India Co., 100, 260. 

Eboe, King of, 335. 

Eccentricity, no. 

Ecclesia, 422, 425, 429. 

Economy of Energy, 18. 

Edinburgh Medical Miss. Soc, 384. 

Education, 31 ; in India, 330; of 
Ceylonese girls, 342 ; of Persian 
girls, 138; of Woman, 342 (see 
Woman). 

Edwardcs, Sir Herbert, 261. 



Edwards, Jonathan, 25, 73, 352. 

Egede, Hans, 81, 213. 

Eighteenth Century, 25. 

Eimeo, 116. 

Electricity, 30, 40, 194. 

Electric Telegraph, 40. 

Eliot, John, 70, 252. 

Eloquence, Dr. Duff's, 1 30-1. 

Emancipation, in Jamaica, 265. 

Emancipation, World-wide, 34-5. 

Embalming Livingstone, 244. 

End of the age, 430. 

Enduement from on High, 276, 
360. 

English Language, ^. 

Enterprise, 45. 

Enthusiasm for Humanity, 180. 

Ephesus, Pentecost in, 16, 210, 
329-30. 

Epic, The Unwritten, 246. 

Equality of right, 162. 

Erromanga, 1 15. 

Erwin, Jos., 113. 

Eskimo, converts, 84 ; work among, 
214. 

Eunuch of Ethiopia, 153, 156. 

Euphrates, Churches on, 17; Col- 
lege, 345 ; Pentecost on, 17. 

" Evangelical Magazine, The," 
381. 

Evangelism, Revival of, 25. 

Evangelization of World, 161, 411. 

Evans, Rev. Jas., 231. 

Everett, Edward, 72. 

Evidence, Laws of, 301. 

Exclusiveness, Jewish, 150, 173. 

Expectation realized, 421. 

Experience, New Lessons of, 3S9. 

Exploration, World-wide, 28. 



440 



INDEX. 



Explosives, 42. 
Extortions in India, 264. 

Fact and form of miracle, 298. 

Facts, Power of, 122. 

" Failure of Missions," 351. 

Faith, 359. 

Falconer, Hon. Keith, 63, no. 

Family Life, 402. 

Famine, Mission of, 320, 368. 

"Fannie Forester," 136. 

Feeding Five Thousand, 295. 

Fees, Ministerial, 198. 

Fell, Capt, Murder of, 114. 

Fever, in Africa, 124. 

Field, Vision of the, 171. 

Field of Witness, 171. 

Fiji Cannibals, 257, 258, 342. 

Fiji Islands, 16, 257, 258. 

Fijians, Missions among, 342. 

Filled with the Spirit, 15. 

Finney, Chas. G., 280; on Endue- 

ment, 14; on Prayer, 361. 
Fiske, Fidelia, 17, 138. 
Fiske, Rev. Pliny, 138. 
Fitness of Times, 19. 
Flag of U. S. on Mt. Davidson, 

432. 
Flaxman, Monument to Schwartz 

by, 93- 
Fletcher, of Madeley, 25. 
Flint, Dr., on the Gospel, in, 

288. 
Foochow, 236. 
Force of Witness, 151. 
Forces of Nature, 193 ; Obedience 

to, 193. 
Forces, Natural, Laws of, 193. 
Forgiveness of Injuries, 234. 



Formosa, 17, 286, 346. 

Fort Simpson, 333. 

France, War in, 66. 

Francke, A. H., 85, 89, 90. 

Frankenstein, 43. 

Free Church of Scotland, 129, 

339- 

Frere, Sir Bartle, 406 ; on Living- 
stone, 124 ; on India, 261. 

Frivolity in Interpreting Scripture, 

425- 
Froude, J. A., on Sacrifice, 401. 
Fulfilment of Prophecy, 13. 
Fuller, Andrew, 97. 
Fuller, Rev. J. J., 265, 267. 
Fulness of Times, 19. 

Gaboon River Missions, 16. 
Galvanism, Size and number of 

cells, 402. 
Gambetta, 308. 
Gambia, Lord, 310. 
Ganga Dhar, 262. 
Gardiner, Capt Allen, no, 161. 
Garfield, President, 178. 
Geddie, Dr. John, 311, 344. 
General Association of Mass., 

102. 
Generation, Our Own, 411 ; Work 

of each, 4. 
George IV. and Morrison, 100. 
Germany, Missions in, 344. 
Getting and Giving, 397. 
Gettysburg, 432. 
Ghost, The, and Cuvier, 31. 
Giants, 51. 

Gifts, Miraculous, 382. 
"Give to him that asketh thee," 

276, 277. 



INDEX. 



441 



Giving, Incentives to, 395. 
Giving, to Missions, 202. 
Gladstone, Wm. E. 38, 406. 
Glasgow, University of, 100. 
Glory of God, 390. 
Gobat, Bishop, 134; Mrs. Maria, 

134- 

God, Ideas of, In Banza Manteke, 

275. 
Godivari River, 141. 
"God-thaab," 84. 
Going to Field, 202. 
Gonzalez, Missionary to Bolivia, 

US- 
Gordon, Gen., 127 ; Rev. Dr. A. J., 
279. 

Gospel, Power of, 157 ; Preaching 
the, 276. 

Gospels, The Four, Compared, 5. 

Gossner, Pastor, 303. 

Goujon, 243. 

Gould, Dr., 387. 

Grace, Miracles of, 329. 

Grammar, Indian, 73. 

Grant, Anthony, 410. 

Grant, Dr., 17,383. 

Grant, Mrs. Judith, 134, 138. 

Grant, U. S., 406. 

Gratitude, No word for, 216. 

Graybell, Mary, 134. 

Great Britain, 380. 

Greatness, Unrecognized, 142. 

Greaves, Mrs., 332. 

Greek, Civilization, 19, 337 ; Lan- 
guage, 20. 

Greenland, Language of, 216; 
Missions in, 81, 214 ; Women in, 
216. 

Griffin, President, 102. 



Grimshaw, Wm., 25. 
Grundler, 80. 
Guiana, Dutch, 74. 
Gulick, Rev. O. H., 323. 

Habit, Power of, 141. 

Hackleton, 95. 

Hair, Offerings of, 380. 

Hall, 102. 

Hallam, Arthur, 3. 

Hamburg, 343. 

Hanover, Missions in, 1 20. 

Hardy, Alpheus, 241, 323. 

Harmony with] God, 410. 

Harms, Louis, 119. 

Harms, Theodore, 133. 

Harpoot, 345. 

Harvests of Missions, 212. 

Hatti Sherif, and Humayoun, 319. 

Hawaiian Islands, 16, 104, 220; 

Pentecost at, 279, 306, 347-8, 

390- t 

Haweis, Dr., 367. 
Haystack at Williamstown, 104. 
Hayti, 267. 
Healing, Gift of, 382. 
Heber, Bishop, 89, 127. 
Heine, 181. 
Henry V., 406. 
Hepburn, Dr., 338. 
Hercules and Serpents, 52. 
Heredity, 123, 130, 141. 
Hermannsburgh, 119; Missionary 

Soc, 122. 
Herrnhut, 85. 
Hervey, Jas., 25. 
Higo, School at, 286. 
Hill, Rowland, 25 ; Sir. Wm., 

261. 



442 



INDEX, 



Hilo, Pentecost at, 279, 347-8. 

Hinderer, Anna, 134. 

Hindu, Cosmogony, 31. 

Hindu Women, 389. 

Historian, Undevout, 21, 26. 

History, God in, 21, 26, 326. 

History, Compensations of, 119. 

History, Prophecy and, 21. 

Hobson, Benj., 384. 

Hogbrook, Sierra Leone, 251. 

Hok-chiang, Persecution at, 237. 

Holyoke, Mass., 138 ; Persia, 138. 

Holy Spirit, Attitude toward, 11, 
392; Dispensation of, 11, 155, 
197 ; in Acts of Apostles, 157, 
196; Relation to Christ, 6; to 
Church, 196. 

Hong Kong, 100. 

Hon-gwan-ji, Temples of, 379. 

Hooker, Thos., 70, 73. 

Hope, Abandonment of, 375. 

Hope, Power of, 3^, 414. 

" Hope, The Blessed," 414. 

Hospital, St. John's, 327. 

Hottentots, 218; Education of, 

3 2 - 
Hough, Mr., in Burma, 223. 
Howard, John, 202. 
Hoxton, Morrison, at, 98. 
Humboldt, Baron von, 72. 
Humour, 127. 

Hundred-fold increase, 212. 
Hungary, Missions in, 363. 
Hunt, John, 254, 257-8. 
Hunt, Robert, 113. 
Huntingdon, Countess of, 1 16. 
Huss, John, 21, 86. 
Hyder Ali, 89, 92. 
Hyderabad, 239. 



Identity with God, 412. 

Idolatry, Hatred of, 225. 

Idols, Assimilation to, 398. 

Ignatius, 144. 

Ilala, 244. 

Incarnation of Christ, 11, 19, 22. 

Incentives, New, 344. 

India, British Rule in, 327 ; 
Civilization of, 20 ; Converts 
in, 37 ; Education in, 28; Hor- 
rors, etc., removed in, 263 ; 
Famine in, 320; Intolerance in, 
264; Missions in, 77, 89, 135, 
260, 331, 348, 387; New Route 
to, 24. . 

Indians, N. A., 230. 

Individual Rights, 35. 

Individualism, 165. 

Industry and Genius, 124. 

Infanticide, 31, 258, 328, 350. 

Inglis, Rev. Dr., Influence on Dr. 
Duff, 130. 

Inglis, Dr. John, of Aneityum, 339. 

Inouye, Count, 325. 

" Inquiry," Carey's, etc., 75, 97. 

Inquisition in Spain, 185. 

Insane, Treatment of, 40. 

Instincts, Universal, 182. 

Intellect, Freedom of, 35. 

Intelligence, 36. 

Intercession of Christ, 356. 

Inventions, Rapidity of, 39 ; The- 
ology of, 18, 24, 38. 

Isolation, 45. 

JALNA, 239. 

Jamaica, Slavery in, 35, 265 ; 

Emancipation in, 265 ; Missions 

in, 266. 



INDEX. 



443 



James, King, 178. 

Janes, Capt., at Higo, 287, 324. 

Japan, 68, 115, 240, 307, 379; 

Missions in, 240, 322, 338; 

History of, 324. 
Jericho, Fall of, 295, 307. 
Jesuits, Order of, 66. 
Jewett, Rev. Lyman, 17, 368. 
Jews, Missions for, 363. 
Joan of Arc, 81, 127. 
Joel, Prophecy of, 12, 13. 
John, Gospel of, iii:i6, 368. 
John, Rev. Griffith, 360. 
Johnson, W. A. B., 16, 88, 251, 

346. 
Jones, Mrs. Dorothy, 134. 
Jonson, Ben., 178. 
Judaism, Decay of, 20. 
Judgment, Times of, 19; Miracles 

of, 157- 
Judgments, The New, 318. 
Judson, Rev. Adoniram, 17, 73, 

103, 105, 136, 186, 340; Mrs. 

Emily C, 136; Mrs. Ann H., 

136. 
Juggemath, 31, 263, 335. 
Juju^Rites, 335. 
Justification by Faith, 21. 

Kajarnak, Conversion of, 213, 

215- 
Kali, 328. 

Kant, Emmanuel, 375. 
Kanwealoha, 284. 
Kapaio and Dr. Geddie, 31 1. 
Kapiolani, 220. 
Karens, 17, 222, 223, 227, 311, 

341, 343- 
Keith-Falconer, 63. 



Keith, Rev. Dr., 363. 
Kerr, Dr., 383. 
Kettering, 76, 94, 97, 354. 
Kho-thah-byu, 222 ; Memorial 

Hall, 227, 341. 
Kilauea, Crater of, 221. 
Kingdom of Heaven, Parables of, 

2 3, 
Kingsley, Canon, 179. 
Knibb, Rev. Wm, 265. 
Knill, Richard, 81. 
Knox, John, 21. 
Krishna Chundra Pal, 33 1; 
Kyoto, 242, 379; Education at, 

324- 

Labourers, Location of, 326. 
Laity and Clergy, 163. 
Languages, Reduced to Writing, 

18 ; Foreign, Studied at Home, 

18. 
Law, Preaching the, 275. 
Lawrence, Lord John, 261. 
Leang-Afa, 98. 
Lefevre, 107. 
Legiac, Chief, 333, 334. 
Legions, Theban, and Thundering, 

370. 
Leicester, 94. 
Lessons, The New, 141. 
Lessons of the Acts, 158. 
Leyden, Siege of, 315. 
Li Hung Chang, 406. 
Lieber and Catallactics, 32. 
Liembe, Lake, 246. 
Light, Laws of, 194. 
Lincoln, Abraham, 410. 
Ling Ching Ting, 235. 
Litany of Moravians, 88. 



444 



Literature, Christian, 119. 

Little Things, 126. 

Livingstone, David, 72, 123, 129, 
153, 243; Services to Science, 
124, 125; Grave at Westmin- 
ster, 128, 310, 315, 326. 

Locusts, Plague of, 320. 

London Missionary Society, 98, 

367. 
" Lone Star Mission," 368. 
Loom of God, 35. 
Lowell, J. Russell, 398. 
Loyola, Ignatius, 66. 
Lucknow, Medical Missions in, 

387. 
Luke, Gospel of, 154. 
Lullius, Raimundus, 63, 95. 
Luther, Martin, 22, 24, 74; at 

Augsburg, 309. 
Lutheran Reformation, 411. 
Lycidas, 351. 
Lyon, Mary, S8. 

MABOTSA, 247. 

Macaulay on Gov. Bentinck, 328. 

MacDougal, Rev. Geo., 231. 

Macedonia, Call to, 183. 

Mackay in Formosa, 17, 288, 

346. 
Mackay of Uganda, 17, 383. 
Mackenzie, Robert, 39, 40. 
Maclaren, Rev. Alex., D.D., 109, 

158. 
Madagascar, 16, 179, 227. 
Madison, James, 99. 
" Magic Skin," 96. 
Magnetism, Laws of, 194. 
Maha-Mong-Kut, 319. 
Mahmud, Sultan, 319. 



Main, Rev. Jas., 235. 

Malacca, College at, 100. 

Malagasy, 179, 227. 

Maiden, Mass., no. 

Malietoa, Chief, 1 18, 137. 

Mammon, 394. 

Mangs, 238. 

Maoris, 256. 

Map of World, Carey's, 97. 

Mar Yohanan, 138. 

Maraes, Destruction of, 118. 

Marcus Aurelius, 370. 

Marquesas Islands, 16. 

Marsden, Samuel, 354. 

Martyn, Henry, 263, 331. 

Martyrs, of Uganda, 285 ; of Japan, 
287. 

Maruans, Conversion of, 118. 

Marvels of God in Missions, Forms 
of, 17. 

Mary of Magdala, 133. 

Maskepetoom, 230. 

Mason, Rev. Francis, 223, 224. 

Matter vs. Force, 193. 

Matthew and Prophecy, 13. 

" Matthew," Livingstone's Atten- 
dant, 244. 

Matthias, Choice of, 58. 

Mauch Chunk, 406. 

Maurice, 370. 

Maximian, Emperor, 370. 

McAll, R. W., 307, 326, 345. 

McCheyne, Rev. R. M., 363. 

McFarlane, Rev. S., 235. 

McLeod, Sir Donald, 261. 

McLeod, Norman, 41 1. 

Mechanics, God's Use of, 144. 

Medical Missions, 32, 382, 384. 

Medical Science, 32. 



INDEX. 



445 



Melanesia, 287. 

Memorial Tablet, Dr. Judson's, 1 10. 

Meriah Groves, 31. 

Metlakahtla, 17,71, 333, 346. 

Micawber, 105. 

Micronesia, 16, 390; Missions to, 
286. 

Mikani, Calabar Chief, 270. 

Mills, Sam. J., 102, 254. 

Milne, Richard, 99. 

Milton, John, 351. 

Ministry and Church Life, 2S7. 

Ministry of the Spirit, 196. 

Miracles, 206; The New, 293; 
Physical and Spiritual, 299. 

Miracles of Grace, 329. 

Miser, 398. 

Missionaries, Proportion of, 87. 

Missionaries, Native, 2S6. 

Missionary Boards, etc., 46. 

Missionary Income, 379. 

Missionary Literature, 380. 

Missions, The Problems of, 4. 

Missions, Service rendered to Lit- 
erature by, 18. 

Missions and Invention, 38. 

Mitchell, Rev. J. Murray, 141, 
238. 

Model State, 252. 

Moffat, Robert, 16, Il8, 219, 309. 

Moffat, Mrs. Robert, 331, 134. 

Moffat's Appeal for Africa, 124. 

Mohammedanism, 182, 380. 

Mohammedans, Missions to, 63. 

Money, Compensation by, 198. 

Money, Ministry of, 396; Prayer 
for, 369. 

Money and Missions, 123. 

Monod, Adolph, 390. 



Monotheism, 182. 

Moody, D. L., 366. 

Moors of Africa, 371. 

Moravian Brotherhood, 200, 215, 

310; Principles of, 88. 
Moravian Missions, 84, 86, 379. 
Morpeth, 98. 
Morrison, Robt, 98. 
Morshead, Capt., Letters of, 113. 
Motives, The New, 373. 
Motley, J. Lothrop, 36. 
Moulton, 94, 97. 
Moung-Khway, 223. 
Mount Hermon, Mass., 366, 411. 
Mtesa, 183, 184. 
Muir, Sir Wm., 261. 
Mullens, Mrs., 134, 135. 
Mullens, Rev. Joseph, 135. 
Midler, Max, 261. 
Minders in India, 263, 264. 

Namaqualand, 220. 

"Name of Christ," in Prayer, 

356. 
Nanumaga, 16, 348, 349. 
Natick, 72. 
Native ministry, 72. 
Natural aids to Missions, 18. 
Neesima, Rev. Joseph H., 17, 240, 

323. 
Neglect of opportunity, 408. 
Neighbourhood of Nations, 30. 
Nesbit, Mr., in India, 240. 
Nestorian Women, 138. 
Nettleton, Rev. A., 280. 
Nevada, Rain shower in, 431. 
Newell, Mr., 102. 
New Hebrides, 130, 348. 
New Herrnhut, 213. 



446 



INDEX. 



New Zealand, 16; Converts at, 

254- 
Nile, Missions in valley of, 16. 
Nineteenth Century Frogress, 38-9, 

305- 
Nitschmann, Mr., 84. 
Nonantum, 71. 
Northbrook, Earl of, 261. 
Northampton, The two, 25. 
Norwegian sailors, 82. 
Nott, Rev. Mr., 102. 
Nottingham, Carey at, 97. 
Numbers, Stress on, 158, 211. 
Nyassaland, 315. 

Oahu, 306. 
Oak, The Sacred, 222. 
Oarsmen in Ancient Galleys, 412. 
Obedience, to God, 143; to 

" Laws of Nature," 1 94. 
Oblivion of self, 198. 
Obookiah, 104, 306. 
Obstacles removed, 377. 
" Occupy till I come," 414. 
O'Connell, Daniel, 32. 
Oncken, J. G., 343- 
" One Blood, Made of," 180. 
Ongole, 17, 345, 348, 3 68 - 

Oodooville, Ceylon, 342. 

" Open Doors," 26, 2S, 185, 377. 

Opium smoker, Conversion of, 
236. 

Opoa, 117. 

Opportunity, 22, 26, 27, 409. 

Opportunity, New, 305. 

Oratory, Rules of, 131 ; Dr 
Duffs, 131. 

" Order of grain of mustard seed,' 
84; The new, 377. 



Organization, World-wide, 43. 
Oro, War-God, 117-118. 
Oroomiah, Revival at, 139. 
Orthodoxy, Tests of, 392-3. 
Outlook, The new, 428. 
Owen, John, 10, 11, 392. 

Parable of Sower, 212. 
Paraclete, The, 196. 
Parentage, Pious, 142. 
Parker, Peter, M.D., 384. 
Parliament of Religions, 337, 

424. 
Parricide, 258. 
Passover, 171. 
Paton, Rev. J. G., 309, 316, 

347- 
Patteson, Bishop, 287. 
Paul, at Antioch, 53 ; at Athens, 

iSl ; at Corinth, 187 ; at Rome, 

7; at Troas, 183; compared 

with Dr. Duff, 129. 
Peace, Prevalence of, 23, t>2>- 
" Peacock Throne," 379. 
Pele, 221 ; Priest of, 282. 
Pelew Islands, 314. 
Pentecost, The modern, 16, 139, 

196; Place in history, 11. 
Periods of Missions, 378. 
Perry, Commodore, 322. 
Perry, Sir Erskine, 240. 
Persecution for religious opinion, 

36, 155; in early Church, 155, 
172. 
Persia, Civilization in, 19; Mis- 
sions in, 138 ; Woman in, 

335- 
Perversions of Prophecy, 424. 
Pesth, Hungary, 363. 



INDEX. 



447 



Peter, Simon, 53, 58, 150, 153, 

173, 174, 180. 
Peter, the Hermit, 65, 129, 165. 
Pew rents, 198. 
Pharisees rebuked, 21. 
Philadelphia, Meeting at, 239. 
Philip in Samaria, 15. 
Phillips, the catechist, Murder of, 

114. 
Phillips, Rev. James, 265. 
Phonograph, 41. 
Pietists, The, 84. 
" Pilgrim's Progress," 339. 
Pioneer Work, 101, 106. 
Pioneers of Missions, 54-5, 60. 
Pitcairn Islands, 249. 
Plan of God, 21, 26, 143. 
Plating a dead child, 392. 
Plitt, 77. 

Plodding, Power of, 124. 
Plutschau, Henry, 77, 79. 
" Pneumatologia," Owen's, II, 392. 
Polynesia, Converts in, 340. 
Pomare II., 183. 
Post, Rev. Geo. E., M.D., 327, 

383- 
Postal Union, 30. 

Potters, the Divine and Human, 59. 
Powell, Thomas, 16, 348. 
Power to witness, 189. 
Praise of men, 127. 
Prayer, for missions, 56, 122, 200, 

35 2 > 356; of Saints, 356-7. 
Prayer-book, 250. 
Preparations, for Events, 23 ; New, 

305 ; World-wide, 38. 
Prepositions in Scripture, 14. 
Presbyterian Alliance, 239. 
Preservations, Divine, 309. 



Princeton, N. J., 366. 
Printing Press, 24. 
Prizes of World, 127. 
Progress, Comparative, 38-9. 
Progress, Deceptive, 424. 
Prophecy, and History, 19; and 

Providence, 22. 
Protestantism and Balance of 

Power, 32. 
Protestant Church Members, 378. 
Providence, Faith in, 126; and 

Prophecy, 22 ; Miracles of, 309 
Prussia, 32, 380. 
Puna, Pentecost at, 282, 321. 

Raiatea, 118, 137, 350. 

Raikes, Robt., 166. 

Raimund Lull, 131. 

Rajah of Tanjore, 89, 91. 

Ranavalona, I., 228; II., 227. 

Rankin, Matilda, 134. 

Rapid Results, 340. 

Raratonga, 1 16. 

Rasoherina, 229. 

Rationalism, Leaven of, 393. 

Ra-Undreundu, the Fijian, 259. 

Read, Hamilton, 331. 

Reflex Influence, of Missions, 389 ; 

of Giving, 402. 
Reformation, The great, 21, 23, 

206 ; in Philosophy, 24. 
Reformed Church, 164. 
Regeneration, 206. 
Regents' Town, 252. 
Relations of Christian Nations, 

380. 
Reporters and Dr. Duff, 131, 

132. 
Retrenchment in Missions, 186. 



448 



INDEX. 



" Return, The Lord's," 414. 

Responsibility, 26. 

Results of Missions, 158, 204, 

421. 
Revelation, Chap, viii., 356. 
Revenge, in Indian character, 232, 

234. 
Revival of Learning, 24. 
Richards, Henry, 273. 
Ripon, Bishop of, 8. 
Robinson Crusoe, 241. 
Romaine, William, 25. 
Roman Civilization, 19, 337. 
Roman Roads, 20. 
Rome and Protestant Chapels, 1S5. 
Rowlands, Daniel, 25. 
Rum, and Missions, 40S. 
Russia and Serfs, 35. 
Ryland, John, 25,96; Jno., Jr., 353. 

Sabbath in South Seas, 117. 
Sacrifice, for Christ, 128, 197; of 

Self, 197; Human, 264. 
Sacrilege, 204. 
Sadducees rebuked, 21. 
St. Genevieve, Death of, 359. 
Saker, Alfred, 268. 
Salvation, A full, 393. 
" Salvation Army," 169. 
Samaria, Pentecost in, 15. 
Samaritans and Jews, 175. 
Samoa. 1 15, 351. 
Samson, 34. 
Sanctuary, defined, 197. 
Sandemann, Mrs. Stewart, 310. 
Sandwich Islands, 220, 34S. 
Saphir, Adolph, 362, 364.. 
Savaii, 118. 
Savonarola, 21. 



Sceptre of the Race, 380. 

Schmidt, and Africa, 127. 

Schoffler, M., 378. 

Schrieber, Dr., 380. 

Schultz, 90. 

Schwartz, Chr. F., 80, 81, 89, 

105, 130, 162, 262. 
Science, Livingstone's service to. 

124. 
Scion and growth, 403. 
Scott, Thos., and Carey, 97. 
Scripture study, 167. 
Sears, Dr. Barnas, 343. 
Secularism in churches, 397. 
Seelye, Rev. Julius, 33. 
Self-denial, of Carey, 96 ; of Jud- 

son, 109. 
Selfishness, 389. 
Self-oblivion, 127,389. 
Selwyn, Bishop, 256. 
Separation among Disciples, 162. 
Separation unto service, 54, 199. 
Serampore, 94. 
Serfdom, 34. 

Serfojee, and Schwartz, 92. 
Serfojee, Epitaph by, 92. 
Service, a duty, 164; reward of, 

416; sphere of, 412. 
" Seventy years," 22. 
Sex, Law of, 388. 
Shelley's heart, 87. 
Shen Mouktee, 224. 
Sheshadrai, Rev. N., 238, 262, 329. 
Sheshadrai, Shripat, 240. 
Shidiak, Asaad, 329. 
Siam, Needs of, 185 ; Crisis in, 318. 
Siamese and education, 31. 
Sierra Leone, 16, 251, 346. 
" Signs of Times," 21. 



INDEX. 



449 



Sixteenth Century, 305. 

Slavery, 34, 128; Abolition of, 

358; in India, 264. 
Slave-ships, Refuse of, 25 1. 
Sleep, 390. 
Smith, Dr. Eli, 140. 
Smith, Dr. Geo., 66. 
Smith, Dr. S. F„ 368. 
Smith, Sydney, 25, 98, 354. 
Smyley, Capt., 113. 
Social Evils, Isaac Taylor on, 336. 
Society for Propagation of Gospel, 

72. 
Society for Promoting Christian 

Knowledge, 92. 
Society of Jesus, 75. 
Solander, Dr , 390. 
South Seas, Missions in, 331, 340, 

367- 
Southern Cross, etc., 255. 
Sower, Parable of, 212. 
Spain and Inquisition, 36. 
Spanish Conquest, 91. 
Spectroscope, 41. 
Spencer, Herbert, 144. 
Spener, Philip J., 84. 
Spirit of God, Power of, 194; and 

Missionaries, 57. 
Stack, Matthew, 213. 
Stanley, H. M., 184, 273. 
State, Ideal, 178. 
Statistics, 204. 
Steam Engine, 24. 
Steam Transportation, 30. 
Stewardship, 204, 395-6. 
Stewart, Chaplain, C. S., 221. 
Storrow, Rev. Ed., 310. 
Subsidence of barriers, 300, 307. 
Success and failure, 204. 



Suicide, 264. 

Sulivan, Admiral, 1 1 4. 

Sunday-schools, 166. 

Supernatural Results, 355. 

Supply of Workers, 199. 

Susi, and Livingstone, 243. 

Sutcliffe, Jno., 353. 

Suttee, 92, 263, 327. 

Sychar, Woman of, 133. 

Syria, Medical Missions in, 387; 

Missions in, 130 ; Woman in, 

337. 

Tabitha, 201. 

Tabu Customs, 177. 

Tahiti, 16, 340, 367. 

Tahua, 118. 

Taljajee, Rajah, 92. 

Talleyrand, 406. 

Tamil Tongue, 78, 79, 89. 

Tanjore, Kingdom of, 79, 89 ; 

Rajah of, 89, 91, 262. 
Taylor, Bayard, 72. 
Taylor, Isaac, 336. 
Taylor, Rev. J. Hudson, 143, 312, 

3H, 3 2 9, 3 62 > 407. 
Taylor, James Brainerd, 73. 
Telegraph, 30, 40. 
Telugus, 345, 348. 
Temple, Sir Richard, 261. 
Thackeray, 141. 
" Thaddeus," Brig, 306. 
Thakombau, King of Fijians, 260. 
Thales, 174. 
Theban Legion, 370. 
Theebau, King, 343. 
Theology of Inventions, 18, 24. 
Theological Schools, God's, 60. 
Thibet, 88, 428. 



450 



INDEX. 



Tholuck's Motto, 85. 

Thomas, Missionary to India, 94. 

Thompson, Sir Rivers, 262. 

Thor and the Oak, 222. 

Thucydides, 76. 

Thugs in India, 327. 

" Thundering Legion," 370. 

Tierra del Fuego, no. 

Tinnevelly, 348. 

Tithes, 341, 395. 

Tomatoa at Opoa, 117. 
Tongarsuk, 213. 
Tongues, Gift of, 159, 382. 
Tongues, in testimony, 159. 
Toplady, William, 25. 
Torment, Voluntary and Invol- 

untary, in India, 264. 
Torringford, 102. 
Training School for Missionaries, 

120, 201. 
Tranquebar, 89. 
Travancore, Prince of, 262. 
Trichinopoly, 89, 92. 
Tsai-a-Ko, Chinese convert, 101. 
Tsetse Fly, 124. 
Tsimean Indians, 334. 
Tuahine, 340. 
Tulsi Paul, 262. 
Turkey, Crisis in, 318; Missions 

in » 341, 345- 
Tyndall, on Crystals, 254. 

Ugalla, Congo native, 408. 
Uganda, 17; Persecutions at, 2S5. 
"Unitas Fratrum," 85, 200; Coat 

of Arms of, 85. 
United For. Miss. Soc, 102. 
United States, 380, 391 ; Debt to 

Dr. Duff, 130. 



"Unknown God," 181. 

Unselfish Spirit, 197, 399; j r 

giving, 399; in serving, 419. 
Unworldliness, 418. 
Upham, Francis W., 36, 299. 
Upheaval, Moral, 301. 
Ursinus, Dr. John H., 75, 77. 

Vaagen, 81. 

Vaudois, 86. 

Vedas, Teaching of, 31. 

Venn, Henry, 25. 

Verani, 258. 

Vicksburg, 432. 

Vidal, Bishop, 254. 

Visions and Voices, The New, 145, 

146. 
Viwa, 257, 258. 
Voice, The Leading, 146. 
Von Welz, Justinian, 74. 

Waban, Chief, 70. 

Wainwright, Jacob, 245. 

Wakefield, Rebecca, 135. 

Waldenses, 86. 

Waldo, 107. 

Walker, of Truro, 35. 

War, 406. 

" War, The Holy," 371. 

Watchwords, 4 1 1 ; of Missions, 19, 

306. 
Webster, Daniel, 391. 
" Week of Prayer," 306. 
Weitbrecht, Mrs., 387. 
Wesley, Chas., 25, 87, 357. 
Wesley, John, 25, 87 ; Self-denial 

of, 96; at Oxford, 357. 
Wesleyan Missions, 230. 
Westminster Abbey, 247. 



INDEX. 



451 



Whangaroa Harbour, 255. 

Whately, Mary, 134. 

Wheeler, C. H., 17, 341. 

Whitefield, George, 25, 87, 357. 

Wigram, Sec. F. E., 370. 

Wilberforce, Wm., 35. 

Wilder, Rev. R. G., 366. 

Wilks, Capt., 260. 

Wilks, Matthew, 367. 

Williams, John, 8, 115,282,288, 
344, 349, 35o, 3 6 7 5 Murder of, 
119. 

Williams, Mrs. John, 134, 137. 

Williams, Sir Monier Monier, 261. 

Williamstown, 102, 104. 

Will-power, 125. 

Wilson, John, D.D., and India, 
238, 263. 

Wilson, Capt. James, 116. 

Wistale, Chief, Patagonia, 113. 

Witch Doctors, 275. 

Witness, among all nations, 25 ; 
Work of, 149, 152, 202 ; Field 
of, 149, 150; Power of, 149, 
151,189. 

" Witness, The Indian," 265. 

" Witnesses and Workers," The 
new, 285. 

Witnessing Church, 153. 

Wodrow, R., 363. 

Woman, Apostolate of, 133 ; and 
Christ, 133, 140,358; in Mis- 
sions, 133, 134, 140; Degrada- 
tion of, 33, 330, 334; Educa- 
tion of, 330, 342. 



Women in Prayer, 358, 359. 
Women, New Activity of, 386. 
Wonders, The Seven, 28. 
Worcester, Marquis of, 305. 
Work, Hard, 124. 
Workers, Prayer for, 369. 
Workmen, Raised up by God, 

58. 
World Empires, 45. 
World, Weaning from, 418. 
World-wide Enterprise, 45. 
World-wide Wonders, 48. 
World's Conference, 1888, 383. 
Wyclif, John de, 21, 107. 

Xavier, 66. 

YORUBA Country, 1 34. 

Young Men, Uprising, 365. 

Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion, 144, 166. 

Young People's Soc. of Christian 
Endeavor, 44, 168. 

Young Women's Christian Associa- 
tion, 168. 



Zanzibar, 244. 

Zenanas, Labor in, 342, 387 ; 

Opening of, 330. 
Ziegenbalg, Earth., 70, 77, 90. 
Zinzendorf, 64, 70, 76, 84, 94. 
Zoroaster, 240. 
Zulu Land, Missions in, 16, 

112. 



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